Star Trek: Time & Tide & Omega
by RainbowDoubleDash
Summary: So, which takes precedence: The Temporal Prime Directive, or the Omega Directive? Good question. No one's answered it before. Which really, really kind of sucks for the crew of the U.S.S. Hydra when they find themselves in a situation where they have to pick between the two. Naturally if they don't, then the entire Federation is doomed - because these things can never be simple.
1. The Ceres Incident

**Sol System Asteroid Belt**

"Commander!" the ensign at ops, Ludjira, exclaimed. "Picking up multiple hostile contacts off our port side. Three – no, four Klingon frigates, _B'rel_-class, decloaking and locking weapons. Closest one is eight kilometers."

"Shields up, red alert," T'Lal, the Vulcan first officer of _Hydra_ ordered, walking quickly from where she had been near the engineering console, conversing with Commander Omak down in engineering. T'Lal tapped the communications badge on her chest. "All hands, battle stations. Repeat, battle stations."

There was a slight, almost imperceptible feeling of motion as the impulse engines of _Hydra_ came to life, maneuvering the small ship away from its foes and behind a large asteroid, buying the skeleton crew aboard the time needed to rush to their battle stations and throwing off their foe's targeting. T'Lal's eyebrow raised slightly; she had issued no order to perform such a maneuver, but the action showed their helm officer's initiative and innovation. "Creative thinking, ensign," she said. "However, the Klingons would most likely target the asteroid and destroy it."

"Yes, sir," Marco Vanoni, the helm officer, said, the slight smile he'd had at T'Lal's initial compliment fading.

"Nevertheless," the brown-skinned Vulcan continued, mindful of the need to balance criticism with praise, "our shields can hold out much longer against asteroid fragments then they can against disruptor blasts or torpedoes. Additionally, destroying the asteroid would confuse their targeting sensors – "

"Sir, all crew reporting from battle stations," Ludjira reported, interrupting the impromptu lesson, At the same time, the Tellarite female tapped a holographic display of a timer. Thirty nine point twelve seconds.

"Excellent," T'Lal said, as the turbolift doors opened again and an Andorian, captain Talzelyhirrnn sh'Sihl, walked in. T'Lal turned to face her. "Captain, we are ready to – "

Sh'Sihl held up a hand as she walked over to the captain's chair. "I died in the turbolift. It's nonfunctional."

T'Lal nodded, not missing a beat and not wasting time wondering how either of those events could have occurred when _Hydra_ had not yet taken any hits. T'Lal instead turned to face the viewscreen. "Very well, I am now acting captain of _Hydra_. What are the Klingons doing?"

Ensign Ludjira's pudgy fingers moved across her controls. "Klingon ships are splitting up. Targets alpha and delta are attempting to flank us from dorsal and ventral angles. Targets bravo and charlie are holding position, probably in case we try to escape in some other way." She looked up at T'Lal. "Sir, even with four _B'rels_, we still have an advantage over the Klingons. Recommend immediate attack."

"Ensign, we are running with a skeleton crew of less than a third our normal compliment," T'Lal noted. "If something should go wrong we will be unlikely to have the personnel needed to cover it. Caution is more advisable when in this situation."

"We could outrun them," Vanoni noted. "_B'rels_ don't have nearly the acceleration of a _Gallant_-class starship. Get clear, call for backup?"

At the captain's chair, sh'Sihl typed a few commands into her console. T'Lal was not much surprised when Lieutenant Sila, at comms, turned to face T'Lal. "Commander, message from Starfleet – a Klingon fleet is attacking Jupiter, our dilithium mines at Io. These Klingons must be scouts or pickets. Starfleet reports that it can spare no ships to aid _Hydra._"

T'Lal considered. "And we cannot allow the Klingons to roam about the asteroid field unopposed. Attack it is, then. Ensign Vanoni, bring _Hydra_ out from the asteroid's shadow, ventral side. Ensign Ludjira, target frigate delta and fire as soon as you see her."

"Aye, sir," the tellarite responded. The bridge was quiet for a few moments as _Hydra_ turned on its axis and then sped out from behind the asteroid, sighting its target quickly and opening fire. The target was reported as firing back, but its shields were quickly overwhelmed by _Hydra's_ phaser turrets and the target itself fell to a trio of torpedoes launched once the shields were battered away.

There was no time for celebration as Ludjira spoke up. "Remaining frigates turning around on us, opening fire."

Captain sh'Sihl pointed at Vanoni, then T'Lal. "You're both dead," she said.

Ensign Vanoni groaned low – low enough that only T'Lal, standing near him as she was, heard him – as he stood up from the helm, while T'Lal merely nodded. Over at comms, Sila stood immediately, rushing over to the helm. "I am taking command," the Trill said, for indeed she was the ranking officer on the bridge – though the contest was only between her and Ludjira at the moment. "Coming about to course four-eight-zero. Concentrate phaser cannons on the lead Klingon vessel – frigate charlie – but launch a full spread of torpedoes at each."

"Sir, the torpedoes won't penetrate the Klingons' shields," Ludjira said, even as she complied.

"No, but the matter/antimatter explosions will blind their sensors for a moment, give them something to think about," Sila pointed out. On the viewscreen, the second target was destroyed under sustained phaser and photon torpedo assaults, and _Hydra_ dashed past it and the two remaining foes as their "sensors" were reported blinded by the computer. Sila then shoved _Hydra's_ engines into full reverse even as she fired the fore-port and aft-starboard thrusters, spinning the _Gallant-_class vessel on its axis quickly enough to partially overload the inertial dampeners, forcing everyone on the bridge and, indeed, throughout the ship, to grab hold of something and brace themselves. Even with that, Vanoni stumbled against one of the bridge's bulkheads, and T'Lal thought that she heard both the ship itself and its engine groan. However, the maneuver had worked: _Hydra_ – and, more importantly, her main weapons – were now facing the aft sections of each of the remaining foes.

"Fire all weapons at will, Ludjira," Sila ordered.

"Yes, sir," Ludjira responded, suppressing a grin. On the viewscreen, the eternal night of space lit up brightly from phaser and photon torpedo fire, the two remaining targets quickly bursting apart in moments as the computer read that their aft shields would not be able to hold out against the sudden unexpected assault from the rear.

T'Lal had stood impassively with her hands behind her back ever since "dying", but once the final target was destroyed she glanced at the equally-"dead" captain, raising an eyebrow. Sh'sihl nodded, and T'Lal glanced up at the ceiling, an illogical but thus far unbreakable force of habit. "Computer, end combat simulation."

"_Ending simulation,_" the computer confirmed. "_Time to complete: four minutes nineteen seconds._"

T'Lal turned to sh'Sihl. "Our best time yet, captain," she noted.

Sh'sihl was sitting forward in her chair, looking out at the viewscreen without truly focusing on it, antennae slumped. Outside, four hapless asteroids that had once each been roughly the size of a Klingon _B'rel_ had been reduced to mere fragments floating in space. "So it is," she said after a moment, standing. "I'll be in my ready room. You have the bridge, commander."

The four other beings on the bridge watched as impassively as possible as sh'Sihl left, walking into the small office that adjoined the command and control center of _Hydra_. Once the doors were securely closed, Sila turned to T'Lal. "Permission to speak freely, commander?"

"Granted," T'Lal said, even as the doors to the turbolift slid open and a Ferengi male walked in looking somewhat nonplussed, glaring at Vanoni. The human held up his hands, then pointed to Sila. The Trill didn't notice.

"What did we do to piss off the captain?" Sila asked.

T'Lal suppressed a very un-Vulcan urge to grimace. "The captain, I am sure, is simply concerned with maintaining our combat readiness in case of a Klingon attack on Sol system," she said. She didn't believe the words herself, and she doubted anyone else did, but a first officer was supposed to support her captain where the lower ranks were concerned. She glanced behind Sila. "Now, lieutenant, I suspect that commander Omak would like to have a discussion with you."

"Wha – _gah!_" Sila had turned to look, and leaped away in fright at Omak standing right behind her, the somewhat-diminutive Ferengi glaring up at her. "C-Commander! I – "

"Oh, did I scare you?" Omak asked, his voice full of friendliness and consolation. "I'm sorry, lieutenant, that was a mistake." He tilted his head towards her somewhat, so that one of his large, bulbous ears was pointed towards her chest. "Your heart is racing, I can hear it from here! Why don't we take you down to doctor Tsegaye, get him to look at it, and on the way we can try and figure out why you tried to tear my ship apart with high-G turns."

"Uh – " Sila began, looking to T'Lal for help.

The Vulcan, however, had already turned away, looking to Ludjira. "Ensign, send to Starfleet Command: _Hydra's_ live-fire combat simulation is over. We are resuming our normal patrol."

Having the Tellarite do Sila's job clearly signaled that T'Lal wasn't about to stop the 'conversation' that Omak wished to have with the lieutenant. She followed Omak to the turbolift. "Commander, I'm sorry, there were Klingons…"

"Of course, lieutenant, of course," Omak said, his voice still nothing but pleasant as the two stepped into the turbolift. "You can tell me and the rest of the crew down in engineering all about it…"

* * *

**Captain's log, Stardate 87135.1**

Hydra_ continues to perform well since her refit and repair three days ago at Earth Space Dock that were necessitated the Nimbus III incident. I was worried that the upgrades to the shields, weapons, and warp drive might bring with it the usual problems of minor malfunctions that the Corps of Engineers seems to love inflicting on the rest of Starfleet, but that wasn't the case this time. Two-thirds of the crew remain on shore leave on Earth, but I have volunteered _Hydra_ to take part in Sol System patrol in light of the ships lost during the Klingon raid of Utopia Planitia, which has left the Earth home fleet depleted. We have been assigned to patrol the Sol System asteroid belt for the next week while waiting for the rest of the crew to return from their leave and for the remaining crew's own shore leave rotation. I do not think I will be taking advantage of it myself, however, as after a week of shore leave I am certain the returning crew will be performing less-than-admirably at their tasks and they will need to be whipped back into shape._

There was a _chime_ from the door to sh'Sihl's ready room. The Andorian _shen_ glanced at her door. "Enter. Computer, conclude log entry." The _chime_ of the computer acknowledging coincided with the read room doors opening, permitting T'Lal to enter. The Vulcan looked more than a little unhappy – or at least as unhappy as a Vulcan ever looked; T'Lal was as adept at suppressing her emotions as any of the race, but if one worked with them for long enough one could start to notice the small slivers of feeling that only the greatest Kolinahr masters could hide.

"Commander," sh'Sihl said, not rising from her desk as she worked on her PADD, going over the computer's reports on their latest training exercise. "Is the middle of a battle really the time to be taking suggestions from the crew?" she asked once the door had shut once more. She glanced at T'Lal. "Fight-or-flight. In the middle of a firefight those kinds of choices need to be made by the commanding officer, quickly. If those had been real _B'rels_ in the time you spent discussing the matter they could have flanked _Hydra_ and done significant damage, even destroyed her."

T'Lal folded both her hands behind her back. "I apologize, captain," she said. "But I was under the impression that we were undergoing a training exercise – precisely the time to spend examining different scenarios."

"A combat simulation," sh'Sihl corrected, using her PADD to point to T'Lal before looking back to it. "And not a particularly successful one. Forty seconds to reach a state of battle readiness?"

"Thirty nine point twelve seconds," T'Lal said, annoyingly precise as always. "Considering our skeleton crew, that was…remarkable. And even before we had reached full battle readiness we were more than capable of maneuvering and shielding ourselves. I would be more concerned by any stress lieutenant Sila may have placed on _Hydra_ due to her maneuvering."

Sh'Sihl actually felt herself cracking a small smile at that. "_Hydra's_ a combat vessel. She can take a little stress." She set down the PADD, rubbing her eyes with one hand as she did. She was, perhaps, pushing herself too far, but given the situation she felt it was worth it. That was why humans had invented coffee, after all.

T'Lal watched impassively for a moment as sh'Sihl stood, walking over to the replicator in her office and ordering some coffee as long as the thought was on her mind. Finally the Vulcan broke the silence. "Captain, I have some…concerns…about how you have been acting for the past few weeks."

Sh'Sihl sipped at her coffee. "How I've been acting?" she asked as she returned to her desk and set the cup down, though she didn't sit back down herself, instead opting to lean back against the desk and cross her arms.

T'Lal took a moment to consider before pressing on. "I understand that you intend to pass over shore leave."

"I do," sh'Sihl answered easily. "After a week on Earth the rest of the crew will need some sharpening up again." Sh'Sihl waved a hand at T'Lal. "I'm not extending that to the rest of the command staff. You can go to Earth, enjoy your stay there. I'm given to understand Vulcans are particularly fond of the Dasht-e Lut?"

"I had intended to visit Addis Ababa with doctor Tsegaye, in fact. However that is not what I am concerned with. Speaking as plainly as possible, captain…you need a vacation."

Sh'Sihl's antennae pointed straight towards T'Lal at that statement, which did not sound anything like natural coming from a Vulcan. "What?" she asked.

"_Hydra_ returned to Earth for standard refit and repair. Ships, however, are not the only things that need time refit and repair themselves. That is the entire purpose of shore leave, and _you,_ in my opinion, need that shore leave more than any on the crew."

Sh'Sihl felt a scowl coming to her face, and did nothing to hide it. "I don't have time to relax," she said. "There's a war going on, commander."

"The war is winding down and has been for some time," T'Lal noted. "The Klingons have undertaken no major offensives for the past three months."

"You're right, they haven't," sh'Sihl noted, as she walked behind her desk and sat back down at the chair there, typing some commands into a nearby computer and calling up the latest tactical map of the Federation's fleet deployment. "And it's a good thing too. The Tal Shiar remnant and True Way are ramping up their activities. The Breen are lashing out in Deferi space and the Tholians are trying their damndest to overthrow New Romulus for reasons we can't even begin to guess at because they won't tell us. Human pirates from _another universe_ are attacking everything in Beta Ursae and Alpha Trianguli blocks. Oh, yes, and lest we forget, the Borg have overrun half of the Gamma Orionis sector block and keep sending raids into Federation _and_ Klingon space. This is leaving aside that the Klingons have been attacked by some new force straight out of their mythology – which would be great news for us if we knew what, if any, intentions the Fek'Ihri had for us!"

Sh'Sihl angrily closed the computer's display, and glared at T'Lal, antennae folded back against her head. "The galaxy is _on fire_, commander. And you expect me to relax?"

T'Lal was silent for a moment, one eyebrow raised at the captain's outburst. "I expect that you need to try," she said at length, "as your own insecurities are beginning to effect the crew. A combat simulation while running on a skeleton crew is a logical exercise to perform…on occasion. In the past week we have run three, each time with results that should have been more than satisfactory." She paused a moment, considering. "If nothing else, captain, then at this rate we will consume our entire stock of photon torpedoes before we can even be put back on full duty."

"Earth is _right there_, commander, we can resupply – "

"Captain, that is not the point – "

"Commander – "

"_Captain?_" a voice – Ludjira's – came over the comms.

"_What?_" sh'Sihl demanded, before collecting herself. She took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Yes, ensign?"

"_Captain, we're picking up some unusual readings near Ceres. Request your presence on the bridge._"

Sh'Sihl's antennae rose high in confusion. "Near Ceres?" she asked, walking over to her door. It opened automatically, and T'Lal followed her out onto the bridge, the argument forgotten for the moment. Sila had not yet returned from her 'conversation' with Omak or the rest of engineering, so it was just sh'Sihl, T'Lal, Ludjira, and Vanoni on the bridge.

The captain looked to Ludjira. "Strange readings?" she asked.

"Yes, captain," Ludjira said. "On the far side of the dwarf planet Ceres – the largest body in the local asteroid belt." She tapped some commands into her station, but shook her head and then looked to T'Lal. "Commander, I could use someone on the science station, the short-range scanners aren't enough to determine what I'm seeing here." And, sh'Sihl guessed, she knew better than to abandon her station at ops given all the combat simulations the captain had been having them go through. Good choice.

T'Lal nodded, walking over to the currently-empty station – all of _Hydra's_ normal science officers were on shore leave – though not before tapping her comm badge. "Lieutenant Sila, please report to the bridge."

Sh'sihl, meanwhile, looked to the fore of the bridge. "Can you put whatever you're detecting on the viewscreen?" she asked.

Ludjira shook her head. "It's currently on the far side of Ceres, captain. We're only picking it up at all because Ceres colony's own scanners are rebounding the signals back to us, but the colony is about to rotate out of view in less than thirty seconds." Ludjira looked to the captain. "Whatever it is, it only appeared a few seconds ago, at most."

Sh'sihl considered. "Ensign," she said, looking to Vanoni, "take us to Ceres, one-half impulse."

"Aye sir," the human complied. "Time to Ceres, three minutes."

Sh'sihl turned to T'Lal at the science station, pressing her hands together. "Tell me you're not detecting tachyons," she requested. A faint sign of tachyons – faster-than-light particles – was a sign of a number of things, but among those things was a cloaked ship.

T'Lal was silent for a moment before responding. "Not at this time, captain. In fact, I can hardly be said to be detecting anything at all…the computer registers radiation but is failing to identify what kind of radiation. I am unsure as to why."

Ludjira looked to sh'Sihl. "Ceres colony reports detecting it too, with the same problems. Whatever it is, it isn't some kind of sensor ghost – not if were both detecting it."

Sh'Sihl couldn't resist shaking her head and drooping her antennae. "The Starfleet Corps of Engineers at work, people. Most advanced sensor technology in explored space and we can't even identify something right in the backyard of our capital world."

The doors to the turbolift opened, and lieutenant Sila stepped in, the Trill looking only a little worse for wear after being taken away by Omak. "Captain?" she asked as she walked over to the comms station, which could also double as a science station when a ship was running as small a crew as _Hydra _was. "What's happening, sir?"

"Strange readings from the far side of Ceres," sh'Sihl supplied. She considered a long moment, rubbing her hands together. "Send to Starfleet Command: we are detecting anomalous readings of an unknown variety near Ceres. We do not at this time believe it to be a cloaked vessel. We are advancing to Ceres orbit…" she glanced at T'Lal, feeling the Vulcan's eyes on her instead of on the science station. Sh'Sihl let out a small sigh. "…however, we currently have a skeleton crew of only sixteen, and are not in a position to deal with any surprises if the anomaly proves to be problematic. Request the nearest starship available to deal with this problem while we provide support."

Sila sent the message, and sh'Sihl looked back to T'Lal, who only nodded and returned to her work. Given that the message concerned an unknown anomaly in Sol, _Hydra_ did not have to wait very long at all before the familiar face of Fleet Admiral Jorel Quinn appeared on the viewscreen, sitting behind his desk at Earth Space Dock.

"_Captain,_" Quinn said, a grim smile on his bearded face. "_Somehow I knew that putting _Hydra _on patrol was a bad idea. Strange anomalies seem to follow you around_."

Sh'Sihl honestly tried not to think about that fact, since doing so tended to make her seriously consider trying to hack the replicators to provide actual alcohol rather than synthehol. She glanced down at the helm before looking back to the admiral. "We're a minute out from Ceres, admiral," she said. "_Hydra_ herself is running more than smoothly, but…"

Quinn nodded. "_I understand your situation, captain. However the next closest ship, the _El-Adrel,_ is fifteen minutes from Ceres, provided that they don't jump to high warp – and as long as we don't have any reason to think this anomaly is a threat, I won't authorize a high-warp maneuver inside a star system."_ He leaned forward. "_You'll be there first. Take all necessary precautions, but I want a few preliminary scans – enough to try and figure out what this thing is and how the Hell it materialized out of nowhere inside of Sol. Once _El-Adrel _is on station, captain Moreau can take over."_

"Yes, sir," sh'Sihl acknowledged. "We'll be careful."

"_See that you are. Starfleet Command out_." With that, the viewscreen switched to showing the seal of Starfleet momentarily, before it switched back to showing the space directly in front of _Hydra_. Already one of the 'stars' in the sky seemed to be growing larger on it, swelling rapidly in size as the small ship approached and revealing itself not to be a star, but a small planetoid with a radius of less than five hundred kilometers – less than a third that of the Earth's moon. Nevertheless, the human proclivity to colonize everything possible had extended to the dwarf planet. Ceres colony had been established in the early twenty-first century to aid with the colonization of the outer Sol system prior to the outbreak of the humans' World War III. The subsequent invention of the warp drive on Earth had rendered its original purpose obsolete, but the humans on Ceres colony hadn't left, and over time the colony had developed into a research station where any number of scientific experiments were run.

As that thought went through sh'Sihl's head, she looked to lieutenant Sila. "Any chance this is the result of someone's lab experiment getting away from them down there?"

"If it is, they don't know about it, sir," Sila said as _Hydra_ decelerated and changed its approach angle somewhat, so that they would be approaching the anomaly while passing over Ceres' north pole.

"Well," sh'Sihl said, walking over to her chair and sitting down, antennae pointed forward in curiosity. "Let's see what the fuss is about. Ensign Vanoni, take us in slowly."

The bulbous image of Ceres left the main viewscreen, to be replaced by empty space – save for a small blue blob with a purple core. Sh'Sihl didn't have to ask for it to be magnified as Ludjira took care of that herself, the viewscreen flashing to a closer image, once that filled the entire viewscreen. It didn't help with identifying whatever it was – it still looked like a large blue and purple blob, an irregular shape that moved around on itself almost like some kind of liquid.

"Ensign, move us to within ten kilometers, then take up an orbit around the anomaly," sh'Sihl ordered, then she looked behind her, to T'Lal, as _Hydra_ closed in on the anomaly. "now that we don't have a planet in the way, any luck with the sensors?"

"Yes, captain," T'Lal responded. "It is a cloud of subatomic matter roughly five hundred meters across…sensors show that it is largely out of sync with the surrounding space – it exist almost entirely in subspace. I am beginning to detect faint traces of tachyons, though I believe we can safely rule out this being a cloaked vessel, or vessel of any kind, for that matter." She was silent for a few moments, then turned to look at sh'Sihl. "Captain, there are also traces of chronitons."

Sh'Sihl glanced behind her at the science station at that. "Tachyons and chronitons," she stated.

"Yes, captain."

"Two subatomic particles often associated with time travel."

"That is correct, captain. In fact at this time I am prepared to speculate that what we are looking at is, indeed, some kind of temporal fissure – although what could have caused it, when it leads to, and why it would form over Ceres, I cannot say."

Sh'Sihl leaned forward in the chair once more, antennae folded back against her head. "Well. I think we've done more than enough time travel for one service record," she said. In point of fact _Hydra_ had been, for various reasons, forced to travel through time on _four _separate occasions in the past year alone. Each time it was under the orders of Starfleet Command, but there had nevertheless been significant paperwork to fill out with the Department of Temporal Investigations afterwards. "Ensign Vanoni, back us away. We'll let _El-Adrel_ handle this."

Vanoni keyed the commands into the helm, then frowned. After a moment, he repeated the motions, but looked no less pleased with the results. "Captain, helm is not responding – in fact…captain, we're being pulled towards the anomaly."

"What?" Sh'Sihl asked, standing from the chair and walking over to the helm, looking down at the display there. "How? T'Lal?"

T'Lal turned back towards the science station, but it was Ludjira that answered. "Tractor beam," the Tellarite said. "I'm detecting a tractor beam of some kind, pulling us in. Raising shields…" there was a slight _hum_ from around the ship as the shields went up all around it, but Ludjira shook her head. "No effect. I can't detect a point of origin. I'd almost say that there _is_ no point of origin, or that the anomaly itself is somehow creating some kind of…_natural_ tractor beam."

"Is that possible?" Sh'Sihl asked as Vanoni continued to type away at the helm controls, to no avail. She walked over to the secondary helm and activated it, trying to aid in any way she could, but nothing was working – not from the impulse engines, nor the thrusters.

"Evidently," T'Lal noted. She looked to Sila. "Lieutenant, hail the _El-Adrel_ and appraise them of the situation. How long until they arrive?"

Sila complied, then listened to the response from the _El-Adrel's_ own communications officer, the Trill's eyes large with concern. "_El-Adrel_ is increasing their speed to full impulse. They'll be here in two minutes."

"I think an emergency jump to warp on their part would be a good idea right about now, sir," Ludjira said. "We only have forty seconds before we cross into the anomaly."

Sh'Sihl shook her head, having done some quick math in her head. "At this point they're too close. There's no way to engage their warp drives for a short enough amount of time to reach us; they'd overshoot us by half a million kilometers at minimum. What if _Hydra_ tried a short jump to warp?"

"I can't recommend it, captain, not with us caught in this tractor beam. We might tear _Hydra_ apart." Ludjira looked to the Andorian. "Thirty seconds."

Sh'Sihl stood from the secondary helm, briskly heading over to the tactical station, looking over their options. Tachyons and chronitons naturally existed at faster-than-light velocities, and these ones were in subspace besides. A matter/antimatter explosion from a photon torpedo wouldn't be useful in destroying the anomaly. But…"We're roughly facing the anomaly," she pointed out. "Could we use the deflector dish to bombard it with anti-tachyons? That might disperse it."

"Explosively," T'Lal pointed out.

"You have any alternatives, T'Lal?" Sh'Sihl snapped.

T'Lal did not. "Bridge to engineering," she said, "Commander Omak, we need you to repurpose the deflector dish to send out an anti-tachyon bombardment."

"Twenty seconds," Ludjira said.

"We need you to do it very, very quickly," T'Lal added.

"_In less than twenty seconds?!_" Omak demanded. In the background of the communication, sh'Sihl and the rest of the bridge could hear the hurried beeping of commands being put into a console and the shouting of the remaining engineering crew as they got to work. "_I'm an engineer, not a magician! If I had a full crew down here – _"

"Commander Omak, you have _fifteen_ seconds now," sh'Sihl interrupted, "and if you don't do it then provided we _survive_ I _will _have you reassigned to a _bulk dilithium freighter!_"

There was silence after that. On the viewscreen ahead, the anomaly loomed ever-larger, looking an awful lot bigger than a meter five hundred meters. "Captain," Vanoni said, "now would be a really, _really_ good time to say that this is just another training exercise…"

Sh'Sihl shot him a glare even as Ludjira announced ten seconds to go and began a countdown. She was about to reprimand the ensign when the comms chimed. "_There! I'm a magician after all!_" Omak exclaimed.

"Ensign Ludjira, anti-tachyon bombardment _now_," she ordered.

"Aye, sir!" Ludjira exclaimed. On the viewscreen a beam of white-green light arced from the fore of _Hydra_ and into the cloud. "Five seconds to go…four…three…sir, the anti-tachyons aren't having any effect! Two…one…"

Sh'Sihl let out an Andorian curse she'd been biting back for the past forty seconds. She just had enough time to finish it before _Hydra_ was dragged into the cloud, and everything went black.


	2. ETH

The wailing klaxon of a ship at red alert was supposedly calibrated to perfectly get the attention of any humanoid species, without damaging their ears in the process, no matter how sensitive those ears were. Personally, Commander Omak had always felt that it was like two cruel beings each aiming active phaser bores at either side of his skull. Needless to say, it was not the sort of sound that one wanted to wake up to.

The Ferengi groaned as his eyes fluttered open, revealing a bright white light. That immediately ruled out the Divine Treasury – said to be made of pure latinum, it would have a golden glow – and after blinking a few times and climbing to a rough sitting position, he found himself exactly where he had been: main engineering of _Hydra, _red alert lights flashing and klaxon wailing.

Nearby, he spotted two of the other engineers on duty – lieutenant McMillan and ensign Anderson, both humans. Both were still out cold. His first instinct was to go and check their vitals, but a Starfleet chief engineer had more important duties. Rubbing some of the bleariness from his eyes, he tapped some commands into the console beneath him, checking the status of the ship.

Warp core – drained to 60% power, but intact and building back slowly. Containment field – intact. Regulators – running at normal. Life support – functional. _Hydra_ had been scratched some by whatever the anomaly was or, more precisely to Omak's way of thinking, whoever had been incompetent enough to get them dragged into it in the first place. Regardless, there were no hull breaches and no immediate danger that he could see. Duty satisfied, he made his way over to the further of the two humans, Anderson, as McMillan already beginning to wake up.

"Commander…?" she asked, pulling herself slowly into a sitting position and rubbing her head. "What – what happened?"

"Nothing that could kill us immediately," Omak said through grit teeth, examining Anderson. His forehead had a cut, probably from hitting the console after blacking out. "After that, your guess is as good as mine." He tapped his comm badge. "Omak to sickbay, we have an injured crewman here in engineering – concussion, probably."

There was silence, and Omak grunted. He tapped his badge again. "Omak to bridge." Nothing. "Omak to weapons control." Still nothing. The Ferengi grunted again. "Great, we're the only ones awake. Or alive. Lieutenant, stay with Anderson. If he wakes up, _keep_ him awake. I'm gonna go look for Egrat – "

"I'm – _gah –_ here!" A call came from above, the second level of engineering where the nonessential monitoring stations were. Omak glanced up, and saw the Tellarite female waving down at him, one hand clutching the opposite forearm, face contorted in obvious pain. She let out a string of syllables in Tellaran that Omak didn't recognize and his universal translator wasn't programmed with before continuing. "I broke my _gscihachkarrij _arm!"

That kind of language was unbecoming of a Starfleet officer – and heard all the time in a starship's engineering section when the reds and blues weren't around. Omak paid the ensign's choice of vocabulary no mind as he made his way up to her, stopping to grab an emergency medkit along the way. "I thought Tellarites were resistant to pain," he noted as he reached her and opened the medkit.

"We aren't _immobilized_ by it, it still hurts like a – " another string of untranslated words. "Sir," she added at the end. Nearby was a heavy section of bulkhead, removed in her evidently futile haste to access the wall panels behind it so as to repurpose the deflector dish. It falling on Egrat after she herself had fallen unconscious had probably been what had broken her arm.

"Well, here's the good stuff," Omak said, pulling out the portable scanner in the medkit and running it over Egrat's form as it analyzed her species, weight, and checked for any allergies. Once done, the medkit automatically filled up its hypospray with an appropriate kind and dosage of painkiller, which the Ferengi injected into an extremely grateful Egrat – though not before reducing the dosage by half.

"Sir?" Egrat asked after noticing that, and more importantly that the expected instant-relief wasn't as relieving as it should have been. It also didn't affect her motor functions as a full dose of painkiller would have, however.

"Sickbay didn't respond – hang on," he tapped his combadge again. "Omak to anyone. Anyone at all." There were several long moments of silence save for a quick wave from McMillan from below – confirming her comm badge worked – before Omak continued. "Engineering is the most shielded part of the ship, whatever knocked us out must have had the least effect here. I need you to be walking wounded – I can't spare McMillan and just leave only me. Starfleet regulations, not to mention just bad engineering philosophy." He offered a toothy grin. "It's only two decks. Take Anderson with you."

Egrat grumbled almost inaudibly as she followed Omak down to the first level. Anderson hadn't woken up, though a quick once-over with the emergency medical kit revealed that, apart from an easily-fixable-in-sickbay minor concussion, he was fine. Tellarites were a strong species, and McMillan and Omak were able to load the unconscious human over one of Egrat's shoulders and send her on her way.

"Let us know if they all died up there," Omak said as Egrat left. Egrat responded with something that was probably insubordinate, but the Ferengi paid it no mind as he looked to McMillan. "Alright, lieutenant, let's do this by the numbers. Full diagnostic of all systems, fast but thorough…" 

* * *

Seife Yaaseen Tsegaye – lieutenant-commander and doctor, _U.S.S. Hydra_ – hadn't faced a headache like this since his academy days. He had been woken up by the only other medical officer aboard, ensign Hauser, and was even now standing slowly and getting his bearings while Hauser ran a medical scanner over him.

"Computer," Tsegaye said. "Life signs and conditions aboard _Hydra?_"

"_Ship sensors detect sixteen life signs, all stable,_" the computer informed him.

"Good, there is that at least." He looked to Hauser. Outside sickbay was a place for the stratification of rank, but inside there were only two kinds of people: doctors and their patients, and right now Tsegaye was in the latter category. "What is the damage, doctor?"

"You were unconscious for about fifteen minutes," Hauser concluded after looking over the tricorder. "I'm detecting falling amounts of adenosine…like someone who just woke up from a full night's sleep. No reason you can't work, though. Also no sign of what _caused_ the blackout…"

"I have an idea of that already," Tsegaye said, running one hand over his beard and looking at Hauser. They had been monitoring the events on the bridge, not having much to do otherwise. "You only came aboard two months ago, yes? You missed the missions to Deep Space K-7 and the Gateway planet."

"Yes, sir."

"Well. Both of those occasions involves tachyons and chronitons – because _Hydra _was taken through temporal fissures in each instance, into the past. Some methods of time travel induce blackouts amongst any humanoids aboard a starship, the length of which is proportionate to the amount of time traveled through. Whatever that anomaly was most likely one of those methods."

Hauser's eyes widened an impressive amount at that. "Time travel, sir?" He asked, voice a mix of shock and incredulousness. "So…are we in the past or the future?"

"I do not know," Tsegaye said, as the doors to the sickbay opened and ensign Egrat came in, one arm hanging limply by her side and the other carrying an unconscious ensign Anderson. Both doctors immediately rushed over even as Egrat started saying something long and, judging from the tone, impolite.

"Broke my arm, Anderson has a concussion," she explained quickly as the two doctors took Anderson and brought him over to a medical bed, Tsegaye immediately getting to work once he heard about the concussion while Hauser returned to Egrat to deal with the simpler broken arm. "Commander Omak and lieutenant McMillan are awake down in engineering and fine. Which reminds me," she used her good arm to awkwardly tap her comm badge. "Egrat to engineering. Doctors Tsegaye and Hauser are alive and awake. Permission to speak freely?"

"_Denied,_" Omak's voice came in reply, "_but I think I know what you're going to say_."

"You deserve it and more for making a wounded crewman drag another wounded crewman through a starship!" Tsegaye exclaimed from over Anderson's prone form as he placed a neurostabilizer on his head.

"_Needs of the moment, doctor – ensuring _Hydra's_ running properly is more important than any person aboard her. Starfleet engineering regulation ninety four dash…something or other._" There was a pause. "_She made it alright, didn't she? Engineering out._"

Tsegaye shook his head. Engineers. Positions reversed Egrat would likely have reacted the same way with Omak; for that matter, so would Anderson. "We shall have a long discussion about that later, commander." He said under his breath as he removed the neurostabilizer from Anderson's head. "Anderson is going to be fine, though I do not envy the headache he will have when he wakes up. Doctor Hauser?"

Hauser had guided Egrat over to another medical bed and helped the short Tellarite up onto it, running an osteoscanner over her arm once she was there. "A clean fracture, doctor. Ensign Egrat will be fit for duty in fifteen minutes."

"And in twenty you'll be attending to commander Omak," Egrat said, then her eyes widened slightly. Tellarites historically had a problem with insubordinate talk in Starfleet, the natural result of a culture that prized argument and back-talk highly.

Tsegaye shook a finger at her, but that was the limit of his reprimand as he went over to a field medical kit and double checked it. "I shall make some rounds, then," he said. "There might be other injuries amongst the crew. Keep an eye on ensign Anderson, doctor, and use the EMH if you need to." 

* * *

Sh'Sihl had fallen partially face-first into her own captain's chair, and a stinging at her right palm as she woke revealed a shallow cut that bled a deeper blue than the skin it was contrasted against. She had no memory of what could have _caused_ the cut, but at the moment it didn't matter as she stood quickly, ignoring the headache and the hurt hand. Over at the helm, ensign Vanoni was already waking up as well, having apparently passed out _in_ his chair, while a glance behind her showed ensign Ludjira slumped down against a bulkhead, lieutenant Sila unconscious at comms, and commander T'Lal on the floor nearby. All three were breathing evenly, at least.

"Ensign, status," sh'Sihl said as she went over to T'Lal, the closer of the two.

Vanoni shook his head a few times to clear it – slower human metabolism working against him as compared to sh'Sihl's own speed at waking up – but responded after a moment. "_Hydra_ is adrift, sir, but engines are functioning…and helm control has been restored." He tapped a few buttons, taking control of _Hydra_ once more. "We were in a degrading orbit over _Ceres_, would have hit the planetoid in another six hours. Good thing we woke up."

"Indeed," sh'Sihl noted, rolling T'Lal over and checking her pulse. It was steady, but the captain had no idea what the standard Vulcan heart rate was. She performed a quick count regardless, then left her for the moment and went over to Ludjira. She didn't feel a pulse at Ludjira's throat, but given that the ensign was breathing…feeling around the neck a little on the guess that every species needed a major artery to supply its brain with blood, she found a pulse at the base of Ludjira's skull. That, like T'Lal's, was beating steadily and strongly, and sh'Sihl decided it was a good sign. Sila's artery, meanwhile, was in her neck as it was in T'Lal's or sh'Sihl's own case, and once again the captain found no problems that she could discern.

Crew seen to, the Andorian walked over to ops and looked it over. "This ship is in one piece," she noted. "Warp engines are drained but recovering…shields are down, so are long-range sensors. Short range…are not picking up any signs of the anomaly."

"Can't spot it visually either, captain," Vanoni said. He had taken control of the viewscreen, and was using it to pan around the outside of the ship, even as he moved _Hydra_ around the planetoid beneath them. "Internal chronometers say that we've only been out for about fifteen minutes, captain, and the anomaly was in a stable orbit over Ceres. It's not where it was. It might have moved to the other side, though."

"Somehow I don't think we'll be that lucky," sh'Sihl said, rubbing her eyes and sighing as something obvious hit her. "_El-Adrel. _If it's been fifteen minutes then the _El-Adrel_ would have arrived and _at least_ tractored us into a stable orbit and sent over an away team to check on us. Hell, with all the signals a _Sovereign_-class like her sends out we should be able to detect her with the short-range sensors even if she was somewhere in the Oort cloud."

Ensign Vanoni turned in his chair, looking at his captain with a mixture of annoyance and concern. "I know gambling's against regulation…but I'll bet my upcoming shore leave that the stars aren't in the right positions."

Sh'Sihl shook her head, not being nearly dumb enough to take that bet, then glanced up. "Computer, analyze current position of visible stars, compare to ship's records." As she said this, the turbolift's nearby doors _hissed_ open, and lieutenant-commander Tsegaye walked in, carrying a case of medical supplies. She nodded to him and indicated the unconscious crew members, but then looked back up. "Tell us how far back in time we've gone."

"Might be forward," Tsegaye volunteered as he made his way over to Sila first, taking out a medical tricorder and scanning her.

Ensign Vanoni shook his head. "If it was the future then we'd almost certainly have Starfleet vessels bearing down on us right now, sir. No, I'll bet we're in the past. Mid twenty-first century or earlier if we aren't being challenged."

"_Analysis complete,_" the computer announced. "_Stars are out of alignment. Their current positions correspond to Stardate negative 343283.4._"

"That's more than four hundred standard years," sh'Sihl noted.

"Four hundred thirty-one," Vanoni supplied, after a few moments of mental calculation. "That would make the local year…1979. September 19th, 1979."

Sh'Sihl nodded, trying to remember what she knew about Terran history and largely coming up blank. It hadn't been tremendously important prior to the founding of the Federation. "Any major events we should be aware of?" she asked.

Tsegaye shrugged, while Vanoni glanced up. "Computer, list major historical events on Earth, local year 1979, through the month of September," he said.

"_Confirmed. World population is 4.39 billion. Major news events – January: Vietnamese-Cambodian forces overthrow Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi leaves Iran, Iran is placed under the control of revolutionary forces lead by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; March: Nuclear power plant accident at Three Mile Island, United States, releases radiation; May: Conservatives win British election; Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; June: United States President Jimmy Carter and Soviet Union General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign SALT II agreement; July: Nicaraguan President General Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigns and flees to Miami; Sandinistas government forms; September: Pop culture phenomenon begins with the airing of the first episode of the science fiction show Galaxy Q – "_

"Alright, I think that's enough to get a rough idea," sh'Sihl interrupted. The people on the bridge had listened to the computer rattle off the major historical events as Tsegaye went over the other two downed bridge officers, even as they began to wake up – T'Lal first, before Tsegaye even reached her, though she waited patiently before doing more than sitting up. Sila was next, and Ludjira not long after.

"I surmise that we are listening to these events because we have travelled through time," T'Lal noted once Tsegaye left her and she stood.

"Earth year 1979," sh'Sihl confirmed. "Four hundred-odd years. Is it just me or do a lot of these time travel accidents and events seem to take starships to the Earth's mid-to-late 20th century?"

"There has been considerable debate on the matter as to why," T'Lal noted as Tsegaye examined her. She examined the captain, and one eyebrow raised when she noted her hand. "Captain, you are bleeding."

Tsegaye's head whipped around at that, but sh'Sihl waved it off. "Just a scratch, and I actually _mean_ that, doctor." She showed off her hand, which had already stopped bleeding, though there was now a dark blue stain on parts of her uniform's sleeves. "Unconscious bridge crew was more important."

The dark-skinned human doctor rolled his eyes but bit back his retort. "No damage to any of you save that hand," he said as he stood and walked over, pulling out a dermal repair probe as sh'Sihl offered the injured limb. "No problems I could not fix with the engineering crew, either. I still need to see to the rest of the crew, but the computer reported stable life signs. I expect everyone else is already awake at this point."

"At least we've arrived before the Eugenics Wars," Sila pointed out from communications, returning to the matter at hand as Tsegaye left. "Actually as 20th-century Earth goes this is a pretty quiet period. Détente, I think it was called. No major conflicts, nuclear threat of annihilation low, Khan Singh and the other Augments are still children…"

"Not that it will make any difference," Ludjira noted, "since we're not going to Earth."

Sh'Sihl nodded. "Temporal prime directive. We're here by accident, and the ship is in functioning order. I see no reason to go to Earth. Ensign Vanoni, maneuver us in Ceres' shadow, keep us out of sight of Earth – on the off chance any telescopes are looking this direction right now I don't want them to find anything but a dwarf planet." She tapped her comm badge. "Commander Omak, report."

"_Primary systems are drained but stable, captain,_" the Ferengi's voice came in. "_Power is building back up, we'll have full power in the next two hours, maybe two and a half. Our shield emitters, long-range sensors, and a few other secondary systems were fried, though. I can fix the shields, probably, but I'll need another hour to go over everything, see what needs to be fixed and what can wait until spacedock."_

"An _hour?_" Sh'Sihl demanded.

"_Short staffed,_" Omak responded. "_There's only me and McMillan and a very pissed-off Egret down here. Anderson had a concussion, he'll be out of things for at least another few hours. Doctor Tsegaye's orders. Even if he were here it wouldn't matter too much. There's supposed to be fifteen engineers in here, captain, not four._"

"Captain, I have some engineering training," Ludjira said. "I might be able to help, sir."

Omak said something inaudible, but sh'Sihl guessed it had something to do with the thought of having _two_ pissed-off Tellarites in his engineering section. "Go," she said with a nod, and Ludjira made her way to the turbolift. "Commander T'Lal, cover ops. Commander Omak, as soon as you can spare someone I want the shield emitters fixed. How are the shipwide hologram emitters?"

"_Uh…I hadn't checked those, captain. Are they really a priority?_"

"ETH."

"_Ah, right – so we did time travel then. Alright, let me check…they're down in the cargo bay and some of the crew quarters, working everywhere else._"

"Good enough. Commander Omak, I want you to come to the conference room in fifteen minutes if possible. I'm holding a senior staff meeting there, and we'll activate the ETH." She glanced up. "Computer, shipwide communiqué." When there was an answering _chime_, she continued. "Attention all crew, this is captain sh'Sihl. We have been pulled into a temporal anomaly that has deposited us more than four hundred years in the past – local year 1979. There is no sign of the anomaly at present, and we have no reason to believe that it would return us to our own time in any event. Therefore, we will be executing a slingshot maneuver around Earth's home star to initiate time warp and return to our own era. The calculations for such will likely take the better part of a day even with the new ETH, so I want all crew to concentrate on getting _Hydra_ back to full working order as fast as possible – we'll need it to perform the slingshot maneuver.

"That is all." 

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, sh'Sihl, T'Lal, Omak, and Tsegaye were standing in the conference room. Smaller than the ones found on larger starships, the room still featured a long table with enough chairs to seat nearly twenty humanoids, as well as a number of long, curved windows of transparent aluminum that currently showed the emptiness of space, Ceres being located on the other side of the ship at the moment.

"I _swore_ I would never need this thing," sh'Sihl mumbled.

"I swore I'd never serve aboard a combat starship," Omak pointed out. The other three looked at him, and he shrugged. "Constant repairing and updating, constant stress, demanding captains…"

"I'm not in the mood, commander," sh'Sihl said. Tsegaye suppressed a smile, while T'Lal only raised an eyebrow. Sh'Sihl shook her head, then stood up a little straighter. "Computer. This is captain Talzelyhirrnn sh'Sihl, captain, _USS Hydra_. Activate ETH, authorization sh'Sihl 1A, 1A, 1A."

"_Voiceprint authorized. Confirmation needed from two members of senior staff._"

T'Lal spoke up at that. "Computer, this is commander T'Lal, first officer. Confirm activation of ETH, authorization T'Lal 1A, 1A, 2B."

"Computer," Omak put in, "this is commander Omak, chief engineer. Confirm activation of ETH, authorization 1A, 1A, 3C."

"And I'm just here to watch," Tsegaye noted, crossing his arms and drawing another look of ire from sh'Sihl.

"_Voiceprint authorization complete. Activating ETH program."_

There was a shimmer in the air before the four of them, and they found themselves looking at a holographic representation of a thin Bajoran of average height, short-cropped brown hair, and brown eyes, dressed in a standard Starfleet uniform with the blue stripe of the Sciences division, but lacking any kind of apparent rank insignia.

"Emergency Temporal Hologram online," the hologram said. "Please state the nature of the temporal emergency."


	3. Omega

"ETH?" ensign ch'Kurn asked the other two people on the bridge at the moment. Ordinarily he was a security officer, but there wasn't much need for that role at the moment and so he was filling in at ops while the senior staff had their meeting in the conference room.

Lieutenant Sila looked to the Andorian _chan_ a moment, one eyebrow raised in an almost Vulcan-like manner. "Emergency Temporal Hologram," she said. "Like the EMH, but, y'know, with temporal emergencies rather than medical."

"Never heard of it," ch'Kurn said. "Is it new?"

Sila nodded as she turned back to the communications station. The panels were cracked open, and she was in the process of replacing the bio-neural gel pack behind there, an operation that was a bit like a combination of surgery and engineering but for which she had received training, at least for the comms station – which was good, because it turned out that some genius at the Corps of Engineers had tied the long-range sensors into _Hydra's _communications for reasons that probably made sense to them but made no sense to Sila. "Just had it installed last week when shore leave started," she continued to ch'Kurn. "_Hydra _was one of the first ships in the fleet to get one installed…I think Starfleet Command was trying to tell us something." She glanced out the viewscreen, as though she could see how far back in time they had gone. "Didn't work."

"But is time travel really that common – "

"It is for _us_," ensign Vanoni, over at the helm, noted. "Each time every single member of the crew got a visit from the Department of Temporal Investigations and glared at like we'd kicked their cats. And that was with all those times being under orders…can't even imagine what they'll do this time – "

"Ha! Got it," Sila exclaimed, as the bio-neural pack took on a blue glow and dormant systems around her began to come to life. She made sure everything was secure, then replaced the panels, stood, and went over to sciences. "Okay, if I did everything right…" she tapped a button, and the long-range sensors on _Hydra_ came to life.

Ch'Kurn scratched the back of his head. "This time was technically under orders as well," he noted. "We were ordered to scan the anomaly by Admiral Quinn."

"Yeah, but somehow I don't think Temporal Investigations will care all that much," Vanoni noted. He stood himself, joining Sila at the science station. "From what I hear they practically treat Starfleet as the enemy. Probably because of the tribbles."

Sila rolled her eyes. "Tribbles were _not_ repopulated due to time travel, Marco, that's just a stupid conspiracy theory."

"Oh yeah? Better than eighty years without a single tribble sighting, and then all of a sudden they're everywhere again?"

"They're _tribbles_. What makes more sense – that someone went back in time _just_ to bring tribbles back to the galaxy, or that the Klingons just missed a world with a few tribbles on it somewhere, and then that world was later found?"

Vanoni shook his head. "I've been in Starfleet enough to know that Occam's Razor is usually wrong." He noted ch'Kurn and Sila's confused looks. "'All things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one,'" he provided.

There was a pause as the lieutenant and the other ensign thought over the human idiom. "Yeah, that's not true at all," ch'Kurn decided. He hadn't even been assigned to a starship for very long and he already knew that that couldn't be the case, no matter how much the majority of Starfleet personnel wished it was. The only constant in the universe was that it simply wasn't simple.

Sila turned back to the long-range sensors, and frowned after a moment when she saw it was highlighting something. "What the…?" she asked, sitting down at the science station and typing in some commands, verifying what she was seeing. "There's a warp trail leading towards Earth."

Vanoni glanced over the data that Sila was looking at, ch'Kurn glancing over his shoulder to do likewise. "A warp trail?" Vanoni asked. "From _who?_ This is the late twentieth century. Zefram Cochrane won't even be born for another fifty years."

"Might just be some explorers," ch'Kurn said. "Vulcans, probably."

Sila leaned back in the chair and putting a hand to her chin. "They haven't detected us," she noted. "They'd probably have tried to hail us if they did. Warp trail is fairly dissipated, too…whoever's at Earth they've been there for a while. Long-term observations, maybe…" she sat up straighter in the chair. "Computer. Identify ship that left behind warp trail."

"_Analzying,_" the computer responded, then after a few moments, "_Analysis complete. Warp trail is too dissipated for assessment."_

Vanoni looked to Sila. "If we moved out of Ceres' shadow for even a second, we could probably get a clear sensor reading."

Sila shook her head. "I'm not even going to bother asking the captain for her opinion, ensign, the answer is no."

Vanoni sighed, but couldn't exactly object to taking things carefully where the timeline was concerned. "Well, if we boost the power to the sensors a little we might be able to…" he leaned forward, dialing up the sensor's power and angling them slightly to be more directed at Earth. The sensors couldn't get an accurate read on Earth due to Ceres being in the way, but there were a few tricks involving utilizing the gravity of the dwarf planet and rebounding signals off of nearby asteroids that could increase their gain regardless.

"_New analysis,_" the computer volunteered. "_Ship utilized artificial singularity warp core. Narrowing possibilities…_"

"Artificial singularity?" ch'Kurn asked, turning fully from ops at that and joining the other two at the science station. "This couldn't be Romulans, could it?"

Sila pursed her lips. "Computer, what were the Romulans up to in Earth year 1979? Did they use artificial singularities yet?"

"_At this date, the Romulan Star Empire was under the leadership of Emperor Traxus and Praetor T'Varo. The Star Empire consisted of twelve claimed star systems, all in close proximity to Romulus. Romulan ships at this time did not utilize artificial singularities. The exact date of the introduction of the artificial singularity drive is not known, but it is believed to have occurred between 2251 and 2257. Romulans of this time period utilize matter/antimatter warp drives."_

"Almost two hundred years from now." Sila noted. "It can't be the Romulans, then."

"_Additional information,_" the computer provided. "_Artificial singularities are utilized in Romulan ship design despite higher maintenance requirements than other options because they neutralize the emissions of a cloaked starship and those of Romulan design leave behind almost no warp trail. The detected warp trail is too old and too intact to have been created by a Romulan artificial singularity drive._"

"So what are the other possibilities? Who else uses artificial singularities?"

"_Analysis complete. Warp trail does not match any known species that utilizes artificial singularity warp drives in this time period. Note: Warp trail is highly dissipated. Accurate analysis could not be performed. Recommend a more direct scan of the ship that created the warp trail."_

Sila leaned back in the chair again, then glanced to Vanoni and ch'Kurn. Vanoni himself looked to the helm. "One second," he said. "That's all we'd need, lieutenant."

The Tril scratched the back of her head at that, not liking being trapped between the need to preserve the timeline and the need to _know_ what was out there, the entire reason she had joined Starfleet in the first place. After a moment, she tapped her combadge, glad that she could pass the choice up the chain of command. "Bridge to captain sh'Sihl."

"_Sh'sihl here, go ahead lieutenant._"

"Captain, we've detected a warp trail leading to Earth, from a ship powered by an artificial singularity. The computer can't identify the species based on the warp trail, though, it's too dissipated – a few weeks old, at least. All we know right now is it's not the Romulans – the Romulans of this era don't have drives like that, and Romulans from later time periods that _do_ have one wouldn't leave behind a warp trail this old."

There was a several moments of silence – probably the captain discussing the matter with her senior staff. "_Lieutenant, what are you suggesting?_"

"There's an unidentified ship at Earth, captain, or there might be. It could just be twentieth-century explorers, but I'd like to _know_. For all we know we might have been brought back to Earth right now to stop an invasion or something. Predestination paradox." It was unlikely, but unfortunately possible. Temporal Investigations hated them, and for good reason, since they were essentially a justification for time travel – an action Temporal Investigations preferred to think of as unjustifiable.

"Captain," ensign Vanoni said, "all we'd have to do is move _Hydra_ out of Ceres's shadow for one second. We know exactly where we'd point our sensors, but whoever's at Earth wouldn't, they'd still be just scanning the entire system with passive sensors. The chances of them noticing us are basically nil. If they detect our scanning at all, they'll think it's just a sensor blip."

More silence, then, "_Alright, lieutenant. One second – one single second of scanning. We'll have to come out of Ceres' shadow at some point anyway if we want to utilize Sol for a slingshot maneuver; it would be a good idea to know who might be watching._"

"Confirmed, captain," Sila said, looking to ch'Kurn and Vanoni and nodding her head back towards their stations. The two complied. Sila herself wished she could have been taking the captain' chair, but someone needed to operate the long-range sensors.

"Maneuvering thrusters only, ensign Vanoni," Sila ordered as her fingers hovered over the sensors' commands. "Give me a five-second countdown."

"Aye, sir," Vanoni acknowledged as _Hydra's_ maneuvering thrusters came to life and propelled her forward. "We'll have line-of-sight to Earth in five…four…three…two…one…line of sight."

Sila activated the sensors. "Thrusters full reverse," she ordered.

Vanoni had already been doing just that, and Sila felt a very slight shift in the ship's inertial dampeners as _Hydra_ shifted into reverse. She focused on her sensor readings. "We detected _four_ ships," she noted. "One big one, designating it as a cruiser-analogue, and three smaller frigate-analogues, all holding position about three hundred kilometers over Earth's south pole. Putting what we saw on the main viewscreen – _what the…!?_"

The last came as her console went dead, showing only a black screen. A glance around the bridge showed the same thing had happened to every other screen on the bridge – as one, they flashed out and went completely dark. Sila stood, about to call the captain, when another change occurred – the screens lit back up again, each of them displaying a cobalt-blue symbol. When she looked to the viewscreen, she saw nothing different – the same symbol against a black screen.

"Uh – " Vanoni said. "Lieutenant…I'm locked out of helm. Everything just went dead. Our inertia would have carried us back into Ceres's shadow, but it's gonna carry us back _out_ of the shadow, too…"

"Everything's offline," ch'Kurn provided. "No – not everything. Shields, weapons, and short-range sensors are online, but targeting independently – I don't have control over them. Long-range sensors are offline." He looked to Sila. "What _is_ that symbol?"

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head and tapping her combadge. "Captain…?"

* * *

Several minutes earlier, the Emergency Temporal Hologram came online and didn't waste any time studiously avoiding making friends. "Ach," he said once his startup phrase was out of the way. "You know that under ideal circumstances, captain, I'm never supposed to be activated, right?"

Throttling a nonliving hologram would have been a pointless act, of course, but captain sh'Sihl looked like she was considering it. Tsegaye, meanwhile, was trying to place the hologram's accent. It sounded almost Scottish to his ears, despite the hologram's appearance being Bajoran. "The same can be said of any emergency hologram," sh'Sihl noted.

"And after barely a week, too," the hologram noted, walking over to the table and sitting down, crossing his arms and leaning back. "So. What's the trouble, then?"

Sh'Sihl glared at the hologram, antennae folded back in an annoyed posture, but she nevertheless took her place at the head of the conference table, the other senior staff members sitting down along the side opposite the ETH. "We're more than four hundred years in the past and need to fix that," sh'Sihl said. "That's the short version, anyway."

"Mmn. And I take it no helpful 29th-century ships have appeared to put you back where you belong?"

"No," sh'Sihl answered, then paused. "Wait, 29th century? We're from the start of the 25th."

"Aye, captain," the hologram said. "But the lasses and lads of the 29th century handle most of the time accidents, usually. Provided your little excursion into the past hasn't wiped them from existence, anyway, or that they're _supposed_ to help you. Might be that you get back to your own time on your own. Or die here. Or any number of other possibilities. It's all very non-linear, makes my head hurt. Or it would if I had a real head!" He chuckled at his own joke.

"I think I hate him," Omak said, teeth grit.

"Your personality is very…confrontational," T'Lal said to the hologram, probably the closest a Vulcan could come to sharing the sentiment.

The hologram looked between the two, then put a hand to his chest as though hurt. "It's not my fault. I'm just programmed this way. Could be that the Department of Temporal Investigations wanted me to be as unpleasant as possible to discourage time travel. Or perhaps Agent Nidav Dettenn – that's who I'm based on – was having a bad day when his memory engrams were copied. Dunno." He leaned forward, hands on the table. "In all seriousness, though, captain. Fill me in on the necessaries, and we'll start looking for a way to put things right." He pointed a finger. "Oh, and if you need to, call me Agent. That's the closest thing I have to a name."

Sh'sihl rolled her eyes. "We were doing a routine patrol of Sol asteroid belt…" she began.

Several minutes later, she finished briefing the hologram – Agent – on how they had ended up in the past. Tsegaye provided that all of the crew were fine, save for ensign Anderson who needed to recover from his concussion; while Omak reported the current status of the warp core – 61% power and rising – that primary systems, including navigational shields but excluding combat shields, and that most secondary systems were offline but relatively easy to repair with the resources aboard the ship. "In short," sh'Sihl said, "we plan on returning to our own time via a slingshot maneuver around Sol."

Agent considered. "There are better stars nearby," he mused. "Proxima Centauri would be easier at this point in time…but that would require leaving Sol. _Hydra_ might be spotted, and we can't have that…alright, captain. Slingshot around Sol, good idea. Commander Omak, how soon 'til the warp core's at 100% power? You're gonna want it."

"Two hours," Omak provided.

"Ach, two _hours?_ Well, I'll put that in my calculations, then. I'll need access to the long-range sensors at some point to take some readings of subspace and local temporal distortions and so on. Shouldn't be hard. Don't you worry, captain. If the _HMS Bounty_ could do this more'n a hundred years ago – subjectively speaking, of course – than we can certainly get everything right today! I'll have you home right quick and then you and Temporal Investigations can have a nice long – "

"_Bridge to captain sh'Sihl,_" the Andorian's combadge interrupted.

Sh'Sihl breathed out a sigh of relief as she tapped her combadge. "Sh'Sihl here. Go ahead, lieutenant."

"_Captain, we've detected a warp trail leading to Earth, from a ship powered by an artificial singularity. The computer can't identify the species based on the warp trail, though, it's too dissipated – a few weeks old, at least. All we know right now is it's not the Romulans – the Romulans of this era don't have drives like that, and Romulans from later time periods that do have one wouldn't leave behind a warp trail this old."_

The senior staff looked between each other. "Odd," T'Lal noted. "An artificial singularity drive is used precisely because it leaves a difficult-to-detect warp trail. It is unlikely that there would be one weeks old."

"Unless whoever created it has been going back and forth over the same area," Omak noted. "But this region of space is underdeveloped in this time, isn't it?"

Sh'Sihl leaned back. "The Andorian Empire is at its height in this period," she noted, "but it never bothered with Earth, I don't think."

"Vulcan in this era also had only scientific curiosity in Earth," T'Lal provided. "The Tellarites had only been warp-capable for a short time and would not have come to this system. The Orions are more active in the Beta quadrant, the Malurians never ranged this far, and the Klingons were expanding towards their rimward frontier. Those are the only interstellar species of note in this region of space."

"And none of those species use artificial singularities," Omak said.

"An unidentified species?" Tsegaye asked. "One that the Federation hasn't made contact with?"

"So close to Earth?" sh'Sihl asked, unconvinced. She glanced up slightly. "Lieutenant, what are you suggesting?"

"_There's an unidentified ship at Earth, captain, or there might be. It could just be twentieth-century explorers, but I'd like to _know_. For all we know we might have been brought back to Earth right now to stop an invasion or something. Predestination paradox." _

"Ach," Agent put in. "No, no, no. We're not even going to consider that one. It's just an excuse to justify time travel."

"I'm not _justifying _anything," sh'Sihl countered. "We're in the past by mistake. But we _know_ that sometimes these temporal accidents prove to be _necessary_ to maintain the timeline."

"Are you lecturing _me_ on time travel?" Agent asked.

"_Captain,"_ ensign Vanoni interrupted, _"all we'd have to do is move _Hydra_ out of Ceres's shadow for one second. We know exactly where we'd point our sensors, but whoever's at Earth wouldn't, they'd still be just scanning the entire system with passive sensors. The chances of them noticing us are basically nil. If they detect our scanning at all, they'll think it's just a sensor blip."_

"Please don't," Agent begged.

"We'll need to move out of Ceres' shadow anyway to perform a slingshot maneuver," Tsegaye noted. "Unless you want us to wait here for however long it takes the ship at Earth to leave. And if we stay in one spot, it increases the chances of us being noticed if the other ship ever goes on patrol."

Agent glanced up to the sky as though imploring the Prophets that Bajorans venerated, but then looked back to sh'Sihl. "Your doctor has a good point."

Sh'sihl considered a moment more, before nodding to herself. "Alright, lieutenant. One second – one single second of scanning. We'll have to come out of Ceres' shadow at some point anyway if we want to utilize Sol for a slingshot maneuver; it would be a good idea to know who might be watching."

"_Confirmed, captain,"_ Sila said.

Sh'Sihl looked to Agent. "Okay, throw possibility out the airlock – what species in this region of space use singularity drives at all at this time?"

"The Xindi Aquatics had a prototype vessel around now," Agent said, after a few moments of processing the request – for obvious reasons he was well-programmed with historical data. "It was lost with all hands, they abandoned the technology. A species called the Makrians – no, wait, nevermind. Can't be them, they went _too_ into artificial singularities and accidentally destroyed their home star system about twenty-two years ago, relatively speaking. Hmm…"

There was a small, but notable, shift in the inertial dampeners of _Hydra_, then quite suddenly all the viewscreens in the room flickered to life, switched to showing a black screen, and then had that black screen replaced by a cobalt-blue symbol, looking almost like a horseshoe. Sh'Sihl's antennae rose high at the sight of it as she shot from her chair.

"_What?_" she demanded. "Oh, that is just _contrived!_"

The ETH leaned back in his chair, glancing at the ceiling again. "Great. Commander Omak, what broke _now?_"

"I don't know," Omak responded. "That's…I've never seen the computers do that."

Sh'Sihl, meanwhile, spun around, looking at the hologram. "Why are you still active?" She demanded. "You should have shut down."

"I should have?" Agent asked, surprised for a moment, though then he shrugged. "I'm a VIP – Very Important Program. My operations are entirely independent of the rest of the ship. Why?"

Sh'Sihl's eyes narrowed. "You…you don't know what this is, do you?"

"Haven't the foggiest. Don't care much, either. Jut fix it so I can get back to – _oi!_" This came as sh'Sihl turned in place, walking towards the conference room's door. "Where are you going? Very important meeting right now! Timelines to preserve! Just get your engineering teams on this…"

Sh'Sihl stopped at the door, turning around. Before she could say anything, however, her combadige beeped. "_Captain…?"_ Sila's voice came over it. "_All the screens on the bridge – _"

"Just went dead and are showing an omega symbol, yes," sh'Sihl interrupted. "I'm on my way there now."

"_Yes, sir, although we have, uh, a problem – we're locked out of just about everything. Including helm control. Our inertia is about to carry us out of Ceres' shadow…"_

* * *

The advantage of the small _Gallant_-class was that it didn't take very long to get anywhere, but that didn't seem to apply when you needed to get somewhere _right now._ Sh'Sihl fairly ran through _Hydra_, followed by T'Lal and Agent, while Omak and Tsegaye returned to their battle posts. Even still, by the time she got to the bridge, it was already too late – they had drifted out of Ceres' shadow and were in full view of Earth, and their scanners were _still actively scanning, _gathering all the data on Omega that the ship was programmed to think that its captain needed and, as a consequence, lighting _Hydra _up to every ship in the Sol system.

"This directive was _poorly thought through!_" Sh'Sihl objected to herself as she got to the ops station and typed in her command codes. Instantly the consoles on the bridge came to life again as the senior staff rushed to their positions.

"Ensign Vanoni, take us back into Ceres' shadow _now_," she ordered.

"Too late, captain!" Sila called from comms, having abandoned the science station, while T'Lal took over ops and sh'Sihl moved over to the captain's chair. Ensign ch'Kurn, meanwhile, left the bridge, rushing to his battle station down in security. "I'm getting hails from the unidentified ships. They know we're here, trying to scan us…"

"Of _course_ they are!" Sh'Sihl lamented, sitting down in her chair. "Bridge to engineering. What's the fastest you can give me, Omak?"

"_Warp seven, sir,_" Omak responded. "_But only for a few minutes at most. Cruising speed right now is only warp four_"

"Warp seven will do. Ensign Vanoni, ready warp seven – "

"No!" Agent interrupted, walking in front of the captain's chair an glaring down at the captain. "Warp seven is twice as fast as the fastest ships in this time can go. The appearance of a ship that fast could have immense repercussions – "

"So could being scanned or talking to them, and we don't want to risk them catching up." Agent threw his hands up at that, but at least he stepped out of the way of the viewscreen. "T'Lal, where is Jupiter right now?"

Over at ops, T'Lal glanced to the captain. "Approximately six hundred million kilometers distant, captain. If we can maintain warp seven for five seconds we should be able to reach it. You wish to utilize its magnetosphere to hide?"

"I certainly do. Commander Omak, give me just five seconds of warp seven, no matter what it takes. Ensign Vanoni, set course for Jupiter."

"Aye, sir. Engaging warp drive…"

The ship lurched at the sudden acceleration. The stars around them seemed to stretch despite the shortness of the trip – an effect of the warp bubble – then suddenly returned to normal as the largest planet in Sol system loomed before them. It got a lot bigger as Vanoni engaged _Hydra's_ impulse engines at full, covering the remaining few thousand kilometers in a matter of seconds, taking up a close orbit to the gas giant.

"T'Lal, status of the other ships?" Sh'Sihl asked.

"One moment, captain, I am compensating for Jupiter's radiation…done. Three of the vessels – the frigate-analogues – are spreading out around Ceres, while the cruiser-analogue has remained over Earth's south pole. They are scanning our warp trail. Captain, they will be able to track us to Jupiter with little trouble."

"Wonderful," Agent noted, reminding sh'Sihl that he was here. He was staring at the viewscreen in panic.

Sh'Sihl ignored the hologram, leaning back into her chair. "That's alright, we bought ourselves half a minute. Ensign Vanoni, take us into Jupiter's atmosphere. T'Lal, how deep would we have to be to hide from their sensors?"

"I do not know, captain. My training did not include the details of atmospheric interaction with subspace scanners on four hundred year old vessels of uncertain origin." Sh'Sihl wasn't sure if T'Lal was trying to defuse the situation with whatever the Vulcan equivalent of humor was, but the Andorian didn't appreciate it and let T'Lal know with narrowed eyes and folded antennae. "However," T'Lal continued, "if we reach a point where we cannot detect them, then they will almost certainly not be able to detect us."

"That'll be about five hundred kilometers down, captain," Vanoni said as he turned _Hydra _into the gas giant, plunging her into the Jovian atmosphere. "Beneath the cloud layer, in the liquid-gas hydrogen layer."

"Can _Hydra_ take the pressure?" sh'Sihl asked.

One of T'Lal's eyebrows raised. "_Hydra_ is a combat vessel, captain. She can take 'a little stress'."

Sh'Sihl glanced at T'Lal, one eyebrow rising in an almost Vulcan-like expression at her choice of words – they echoed what she herself had said to the commander a few hours ago and several hundred years in the future. "Alright, then," sh'Sihl, taking in a deep breath and letting it out. "Get us down _four _hundred kilometers, Ensign Vanoni. Lieutenant Sila, commander T'Lal, keep an eye on the intruder vessels. If they show any signs of detecting us, then take us down to five hundred kilometers, but I'm willing to gamble that their sensors aren't nearly as good as ours."

"The intruder ships have identified our warp trail," T'Lal said. "They have engaged their own warp drives, proceeding to Jupiter at warp four. They will arrive in twenty seconds."

"Everyone cross your fingers…" Vanoni said, as the unknown ships advanced. There was a solid standard minute of silence as they dropped out of warp near Jupiter and _Hydra_ reported the scanners of two of the ships lighting up and sweeping across the gas giant, while the third proceeded towards the cloud-covered volcanic moon of Io and started its own scans. With nothing else to do but wait, an image of the black-and-red frigate-analogues was placed on the viewscreen. They were split into two sections, a rear cylindrical section containing the engine, and a forward, more tapered part in the front that was shaped like a double-headed axe. Two additional "wings" extended from the middle, almost looking like nacelle struts but containing instead what were obviously torpedo launchers.

"Their scans…are penetrating two hundred and fifty kilometers into Jupiter, captain," T'Lal reported after the minute had passed, once she was sure of the limits of the vessels' scanners. There were sighs of relief from around the bridge.

"Captain, the intruder vessels are hailing us again," Sila reported from comms. "Broad call – they can't detect us, they're just trying to contact us. The universal translator has been able to decode the language, but it isn't in our databases."

Sh'Sihl considered a moment. "Alright, then, let's hear it. No response, lieutenant."

"Aye, sir. Onscreen."

The main viewscreen lit up, switching from showing the murky environs of Jupiter's liquid-gas hydrogen layer and instead showing the bridge of a starship, the configuration of which sh'Sihl did not recognize but looked intensely military. The species revealed was equally new to her: Humanoid in appearance, they appeared thin and fit, dressed in uniforms of black jackets with red stripes along the hems and gray undershirts. The species itself had heads that were bald but for topknots – whether this was a natural feature or the result of shaving was impossible to tell – with intricate cranial features, eyes with black sclera and white irises, and subtly pointed ears. Their faces and the visible parts of the front of their necks were a very deep brown, but faded almost immediately to midnight black away from those locations.

"_Unidentified vessel,_" the humanoid standing in the center of the bridge – the ship's captain, most likely – said. His voice was deep and smooth. "_I am captain Avarar of the Hegemony Ship _Katar_. You have entered a system claimed by the Ikroden Hegemony._" The captain pressed his two gloved hands together, and leaned forward. "_I am certain that you bear no ill will towards the Hegemony. If you reveal and identify yourselves, I promise safe passage from this system."_

"Ikroden Hegemony?" sh'Sihl asked, glancing towards Agent, who was standing with both hands covering his face. "Agent, can you identify them now?"

"Honestly, what does it matter?" Agent asked. "They've seen the ship, they've seen how fast _Hydra_ can go, we've probably ensured that four hundred years from now all of the Alpha Quadrant is controlled by the Lyssians as a result." Sh'Sihl's eyes narrowed, and she opened her mouth to rebuke him, but Agent lifted his head and sighed. "Ikrodens. From Ikroda – Epsilon Indii on Federation star charts, about fifty light years from Sol. In the twenty-fifth century they have a population of just under a billion."

Sh'Sihl's antennae went high in surprise at such a low number. Granted, the Andorian population wasn't much higher, but that was because her species had only recently solved a genetic crisis back on Andor. It was by no means desirable for an interstellar species to have such a low population, and the Andorian government was offering generous incentives for Andorians to have large families in order to recover from centuries of population decline. "How come we've never heard of them?"

"Because they're not Federation members. They're not even warp-capable."

"That seems unlikely considering that these ships just moved at warp four," T'Lal noted, tapping some commands into ops. "I am analyzing the closest frigate…singularity core warp drive, armed with three photon torpedo launchers and a half-dozen phaser cannons. I am also detecting a mine launcher and shield generator. Maximum warp I would estimate at warp six."

"That's pretty fast for this era," Sila noted from comms.

"In fact, lieutenant, that would make these likely the _fastest _ships of this time period," T'Lal noted. "Beyond prototypes, Vulcans would not begin building ships of comparable speed for another twenty-one years, and no other power would have warp six capable ships for more than a century after that."

Sh'Sihl turned to Agent. "Explanation?" she asked.

Agent shook his head. "It's not that the Ikroden haven't developed the warp drive, captain. They did, and it _was_ based around artificial singularities – Epsilon Indii has no native sources of dilithium to maintain matter/antimatter reactions, so it was their only choice. But the Ikroden never ranged far from Epsilon Indii, and all records state that they gave up warp travel in the early twenty-first century. There was some sort of social upheaval in their home system, the Federation doesn't have any records of it, but the Ikrodens of our time are by and large anarchists, without any real central government above city-state level. They keep to themselves, mostly. They don't have anything to trade and don't want to trade for anything."

Sh'Sihl looked back to the viewscreen, where the Ikroden captain Avarar was speaking to another Ikroden, inaudibly. "Those don't look like planet-bound anarchists," she noted.

"And what's this about Earth being claimed by an Ikroden Hegemony?" Vanoni asked. "Earth had no contact with extraterrestrials until the 2060s, and that was with the Vulcans."

"Aye, no _confirmed_ contact," Agent said. "There's some evidence of prior contact on an individual scale, though. If these Ikrodens were keeping close orbit over Earth's south pole, then they'd be effectively invisible to the planet's detection methods of the time."

"But what are they doing on Earth?" Sila asked. "Does it have anything to do with that…omega thing?"

Everyone looked to the captain, and sh'Sihl grimaced. "Commander T'Lal. Scan the Ikroden ships for evidence of Omega. The ship will know what it's looking for, and the radiation of Jupiter should hide our scans."

"Confirmed, captain. Scanning now…no results. The Ikroden do not appear to have noticed our attempt."

"Are we able to scan the Ikroden cruiser-analogue over Earth from here?"

"Yes, captain. Scanners do not detect 'Omega' – wait." T'Lal tapped a few buttons. "Scans are indeed detecting a phenomenon designated as Omega, not from the cruiser-analogue but rather from Earth's surface – two locations, one in northeastern Eurasia, the other in the South Atlantic Ocean. I am not receiving any data as to what Omega _is_, however."

"Nor will you. It's classified, captains and flag officers only. Too dangerous, can't tell you more than that right now – "

Agent barked out a laugh at that, hands on his hips. "Captain, I'm standing here. I'm locked down so only senior officers can activate me, but I'm not _secret_, and I can change all of history! I find it hard to believe that there could be anything more dangerous than _me_ in all of the galaxy at this point in time."

Sh'Sihl rolled her eyes as she stood from the captain's chair, antennae following the motion. "Well, there is," she said. She looked to the rest of the bridge crew, pressing her lips together tightly as she thought for several moments. "Commander, transfer all data the computer has gathered on Omega to my ready room. Ensign Vanoni, keep us at this depth in Jupiter. If the Ikroden ships show any sign of coming in after us, do anything necessary to avoid contact. Lieutenant Sila, monitor their communications, see if you can learn anything useful. Agent – pretend the Ikroden aren't here and you don't know what's going on. Just concentrate on your calculations for time warp. No one, and I mean _no one_, is to discuss Omega with the rest of the crew. T'Lal, you have the bridge."

Sh'Sihl didn't wait for any responses as she turned and walk into her office.

* * *

Once she was safely within her ready room and had the room locked down, sh'Sihl took in a deep breath and let it out. It didn't help. She then went to the replicator and called for the blacket, hottest coffee it could manage. That didn't help either.

"Computer," she said, moving over to her desk and sitting down, "access secure data file Omega One. Clearance code sh'Sihl 2306-red, clearance level ten. First priority before _anything_ else: cross-reference Omega Directive with Temporal Prime Directive, namely, which one takes priority."

"_Clearance confirmed. Omega Phenomenon has been detected 2.8 astronomical units from this vessel. Implement the Omega Directive. All other priorities are rescinded. Error: ship has become temporally displaced. Temporal Prime Directive is highest priority, no action is to be undertaken that may alter the timeline. Error: Omega Directive is highest priority. All other priorities are rescinded. Error: Temporal Prime Directive is highest priority, no action is to be undertaken that may alter the timeline. Error: Omega Directive is highest priority – _"

"Computer, cease." After making sure she hadn't just broken the damn thing, she pressed on. "Computer, am I right in guessing that there is no precedent for the Omega Directive and Temporal Prime Directive coming into conflict?"

"_Affirmative._"

"And am I correct in assuming that Starfleet didn't bother to program you to determine which one had the higher priority?"

"_Negative. Omega Directive has absolute priority. Error: Temporal Prime Directive has absolute priority. Error: Omega – "_

"Yeah," sh'Sihl said, leaning back in her chair and taking a very long sip of her coffee, letting the computer run through its endless loop. "That's what I thought."


	4. Maskirova

**Captain's log, Stardate…**

…sh'Sihl paused, thought a few moments, and reconsidered starting a new log with a new stardate. It just raised a question she wasn't entirely sure how to answer.

**Captain's log, **_**supplemental**_

_After interacting with a temporal anomaly that appeared apropos nothing near Ceres, Hydra has been pulled over four hundred years into the past. She is in essentially good working order and there are no notable injuries to any of our sixteen crew aboard. I have activated the ETH with the intention of using Sol as a slingshot to begin time warp back to the twenty-fifth century, however, fate has seen fit to provide me with a problem that prevents that. Hydra has detected the phenomenon known as Omega at Earth, in addition to a quartet of ships belonging to the Ikroden Hegemony, a stellar nation that, according to our records, never existed. I therefore find myself in the situation of being forced to choose between the Temporal Prime Directive and the Omega Directive, as both have been assigned absolute priority by Starfleet Command. Note to Starfleet Command: this is a stupid mistake and shouldn't have happened, morons. No wonder the Galaxy is in the state it is._

Sh'Sihl let out a grunt as she finished saying that, briefly imagining the chewing out that she would receive for submitting such a log to Starfleet Command. It would _almost _be worth it – almost, but not quite. "Computer, delete previous two sentences in captain's log."

"_Confirmed._"

The Andorian leaned back in her chair and groaned, rubbing her eyes and wondering how any being could possibly be so tired after having two cups of replicated coffee. A glance at her computer's chronometer confirmed that she had been locked away in her ready room for four hours, going over everything Starfleet had on Omega as well as reviewing – not for the first time – all the standard operating procedures of a ship that had traversed time.

Unfortunately, all the data seemed to point to one and only one conclusion: this situation was entirely in her own hands. There were no standing orders for situations where the Omega Directive and the Temporal Prime Directive overlapped, no precedent of it ever happening in the past, nor even any vaguely similar situations she could use for comparison. She was in uncharted ice flows here, the night was dark, and she had only her own instincts for serve as navigational aids.

Well…so be it. "Computer, unseal captain's ready room. Sh'Sihl to commanders Omak and T'Lal, and to Agent. Join me in my ready room."

She didn't need to wait long for T'Lal, who was just on the other side of the door already and only had to pass command over to lieutenant Sila. Omak was somewhat slower in coming, since he had to come up from the engineering section, and was still wiping his hands with a rag as he came up, his uniform sleeves rolled up and the uniform itself stained in several different colors. Agent was the last to arrive, and was still clutching a PADD as he did, typing away at it.

Sh'Sihl eyed the hologram as she stood. "I would have thought you could do all the calculations internally," she noted.

"I can," Agent responded, not looking up, "but my program is entirely compartmentalized, I can't spread the knowledge to the rest of the ship. This is for you lot once I'm done."

Sh'Sihl decided to ignore the fact that Agent was basically ignoring her; he was, after all, just a hologram. "Alright. Commander T'Lal, what are the Ikroden ships doing?"

T'Lal shifted somewhat, folding her hands behind her back as she spoke. "We have positively identified the three Ikroden frigates as the _Katar_, the _Talwar_, and the _Kukri_, while their command cruiser is the _Parang_. None of these ships exist in Federation databases, but we have been able to ascertain their names based on the Ikroden script on each one. The frigates are maintaining a high orbit around Jupiter's equator, outside the effects of the magnetosphere and within line-of-sight of each other. They have additionally launched probes that have taken up orbit over Jupiter's north and south poles." T'Lal's eyebrow raised slightly. "All in all, captain, the Ikroden have set up a crude but effective blockade. We could not leave Jupiter's atmosphere without them noticing."

Sh'Sihl nodded, expecting the news. "And the cruiser – _Parang?_"

"It has maintained its close position over Earth's south pole. There has been significant communications traffic between the _Parang_ and the Ikroden frigates, but Jupiter's magnetosphere has prevented a detailed analysis of the situation." T'Lal shifted a little once again. "As for a tactical analysis of our situation – I do not at this time believe _any_ of the Ikroden vessels to pose a significant threat to _Hydra_. While the Ikroden vessels are faster than any other ship we are aware of in this time period, this appears to be their only exceptional quality. They are still far slower than _Hydra _herself. Even if we were to engage all four vessels at once, I still place our odds of emerging victorious at greater than six to one, unless the Ikroden have some hidden weapon that our scans cannot detect, or some other circumstance were to work against _Hydra_."

Sh'Sihl crossed her arms. "Good to know…commander Omak, how is _Hydra?_"

"Warp core is fully recharged," Omak said, walking over to the replicator, placing the soiled cloth he had into it, and recycling it before jerking a thumb at the replicator itself. "Half the ship's replicators are down, all the ones on the port side. Other half are working fine. Holodeck is still running, too. But you wanna know about weapons and shields," he said, before sh'Sihl could say as much herself, albeit with somewhat stronger language. "Phaser turrets are just fine, and with the warp core back up they'll run at full power. We still have more than half our stock of photon torpedoes. Shield _power_ is fine, but I'd want to get out and inspect the shield emitters before turning them back on. Like I said earlier, they were fried. Their self-repair systems are functional, but…well, Corps of Engineers rule number one: nothing beats a visual inspection."

T'Lal shifted slightly. "Without shields our tactical advantage over the Ikroden vessels drop significantly. _Hydra's_ ablative armor will be able to absorb or reflect most phaser fire from the Ikroden vessels, but torpedoes or mines could prove to be…problematic. Less so than their 25th-century equivalents, but a notable threat nonetheless."

Omak pointed a thumb out of the viewport in sh'Sihl's ready room, to the Jovian atmosphere outside that was composed primarily of equal parts liquid and gaseous hydrogen, barely visible but for the running lights of _Hydra_. "I can't send someone outside in that to check, is the problem. The pressure and temperature our suits can handle, but the wind speed out there is hundreds of kilometers an hour. They'd be torn apart or blown off."

Sh'Sihl shook her head. "Not a real problem. Even if I intended to fight the Ikroden, we could break Jovian orbit and warp away to deep space before they could intercept us, and then we'd have all the time we need to conduct repairs then, assuming the shields even need to be repaired at all. But I don't intend to fight the Ikroden."

"What we _intend_ and what _happens_ have never exactly been similar," Omak pointed out. Sh'Sihl glared at him.

"I…must concur with commander Omak," T'Lal said. Sh'Sihl's glare shifted its target, but T'Lal held firm. "There are a number of variables in place which prevent a truly accurate assessment of the situation."

She didn't say it, but her tone made it clear what she was referring to. Sh'Sihl managed to maintain her glare for only a moment longer before sitting back down, and indicating the two chairs in front of her desk and the couch off to one side. Agent reached the couch first, stretching out comfortably as he continued to type away at the PADD – despite the fact that, as hologram, he in fact could not get tired of standing, and if anything Omak probably needed the couch more from all the physical labor he'd been doing.

The Ferengi and Vulcan settled into the chairs without complaint, however. Sh'Sihl leaned back in her own, going back to ignoring Agent and wishing that she had ordered another coffee before sitting back down. She could stand up and get it, of course, who cared if it made her look restless, she was the captain, she could sit or stand whenever she wanted…

"Captain?" Omak prompted after sh'Sihl was quiet for several long moments.

"Thinking," sh'Sihl answered quickly, returning herself to the here and now and wishing that her metabolism didn't burn through coffee so fast. She breathed in deeply, staring at her desk. "Okay. Under normal circumstances, on the detection of Omega, I would get a line to Starfleet Command, who would deploy a specialized team to deal with it, and we wouldn't have to have this conversation."

"Impossible at the moment, of course," T'Lal noted, leaning back in her chair and folding her hands together in front of her.

"Yes," sh'Sihl said. "Fortunately there was an addendum to the Omega Directive – that's the name of this order – made in 2379 following the return of _USS_ _Voyager _to the Alpha Quadrant – called the Janeway Amendment, which permits a captain that is unable to contact Starfleet Command to inform as much of her crew as he or she deems necessary to complete the Omega Directive. I am invoking that amendment now."

Sh'Sihl was aware that her antennae were standing tall, a sign of nervousness. She forced them into a more neutral position as she began relating the story of Omega – a synthetic molecule first created by Starfleet in 2269 by a man named Bendes Ketteract. A single molecule of Omega had the same power potential of an entire warp core, a miracle even by the standards of modern technology. A civilization that based its energy requirements around Omega would have the power needed to perform feats that would seem almost divine. Transmatter drives, stable genesis effects, feasible Dyson spheres, the casual transport between quantum realities and timelines and even entire universes…

But like all impossible-to-believe treasures, this one came with a terrible cost. Omega was _highly _unstable. Ketteract had been able maintain the integrity of the single Omega molecule that he had created for a fraction of a second before it had destabilized and exploded with the power of the warp core that it could have replaced – and done far more damage than that. The Omega molecule had torn apart and destroyed subspace within several light years in the Lantaru sector, the subspace that the warp drive needed in order to make a warp field, the subspace that interstellar communication and travel was based around. In short, Omega could stop a ship or signal from ever entering subspace – from achieving warp – from moving faster than light.

One single molecule had destroyed subspace in a region lightyears across. A small string of Omega could devastate a larger region – a few hundred molecules, still too small to see with the naked eye, could destroy subspace across an entire _quadrant_. It was the single most dangerous substance in all of known space. The Klingons, the Undine, the Borg, _nothing_ compared to Omega.

"Which is why," sh'Sihl said in conclusion, "Starfleet classified everything to do with Omega. They lied to the public, claimed the disaster in the Lanatru sector was the result of a natural phenomenon. Then Statfleet developed the Omega directive. In short – we are to do anything, _anything_, in our power needed to destroy Omega. The Omega Directive supersedes even the Prime Directive."

That got a reaction out of T'Lal and Omak both, raised eyebrows from the Vulcan and a slight jump for the Ferengi. It was Agent who verbally reacted first, however, standing from the couch. "_No_," he said, making a cutting motion with his free hand. He tossed the PADD that was in the other onto the couch. "_Nothing_ supersedes the Prime Directive. If that were even remotely true then I would know about it!"

"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" Sh'Sihl asked blithely. "Believe me, Agent, I've been trying to sort this mess out for hours now. Here, watch." She looked to her computer. "Computer, between the Omega Directive and the Temporal Prime Directive, which has higher priority?"

"_Omega Directive has absolute priority. Error: Temporal Prime Directive has absolute priority. Error: Omega Directive has absolute priority. Error: Temporal Prime Directive – _"

"Computer, cease," sh'Sihl ordered, and the computer did so. She looked back to Agent. "It's only naming Omega first because it comes first alphabetically, I checked. Someone at Starfleet Command screwed up. Neither directive was ever given higher priority than the other – probably because even amongst captains and flag officers, discussing Omega is frowned upon." She shook her head, leaning forward in her chair and rubbing her hands tighter. "So. That's where we stand."

"Our situation is…unenviable," T'Lal noted. She very nearly frowned. "How is it that the Ikroden have even developed Omega? The technology would appear to be beyond them."

"Technology isn't a steady march from one point to the next to the one after that," Omak noted. "The Ikroden don't have dilithium in their home system, so they invented singularity drives. The maintenance and danger of those must have made them start looking for alternatives, and for whatever reason their line of research took them to Omega rather than dilithum-based warp drives."

"They are isolationist in our time," sh'Sihl noted, picking a PADD off of her desk and waving it around. "I did some research, confirmed what you told us." She nodded towards Agent. "They don't have any interest in maintaining colonies outside of Epsilon Indii, so no dilithium mines – and in this era dilithium is hard enough to find that not a lot of people are willing to trade it to other races, and even when they are, the prices are enormous."

"Well, this is _fascinating_," Agent said, clapping his hands together. "Truly, it is. But I don't see what it has to do with me getting you people home, unless you're suggesting doing what I really, really, _really_ hope you're not."

T'Lal and Omak looked back to sh'Sihl at that, who nodded, clearly unhappy with her decision but making it anyway. "My reasoning is this: the Temporal Prime Directive is an outgrowth of the Prime Directive. It's given a higher priority because of just how damaging it could be…but it's still essentially just a subsection of the Prime Directive. And the Omega Directive trumps the Prime Directive normally. So it should do so here, as well." She looked to her two most senior officers. T'Lal would probably be a captain in her own right soon, Omak not long after, if they wanted it, considering the rate that Starfleet was building new ships and snapping up people to run them. She sincerely hoped that they would never have to face choices like this – life-or-death decisions on which seemed to hang the fate of the entire Federation, and where no choice seemed like a good one. The _Kobayashi Maru_ had nothing on real life.

"So," she continued. "We're going to go to Earth and destroy any Omega there, then try and figure out a way to stop the Ikroden from researching Omega further. We _have _to do this – by any means necessary."

"No we don't," Agent countered immediately, though there was an air of desperation to his voice. Sh'Sihl's glare was on him instantly, but the hologram didn't seem to care. "You really don't. This is easy! You can _time travel_, captain, I'm here to make sure of it! All you have to do is pop back to the 25th century and take a look around. If there are Ikroden everywhere, _then _you know that you've made a mistake and _then _we can travel back and fix things."

"That is not correct," T'Lal noted, steepling her fingers before her face. "If Omega truly can destroy subspace, then any return to our subjective present could well be one-way. If the Ikroden fail to stabilize Omega at Earth, then it could lead to the entire sector being cut off from subspace – thereby preventing us from initiating a time warp."

"_And_ preventing the Federation from ever forming," Omak added. "At the least, Earth and Alpha Centauri would be cut off from subspace. Depending on how much Omega the Ikroden have synthesized the effect could reach further. Andor and Tellar are both within fifteen light years, Vulcan not much further." He shrugged. "So, there go all five founding members. Can I have PADD with all the information on Omega on it?"

Sh'Sihl considered refusing him on the grounds of how secret Omega was supposed to be, but instead sighed to herself and nodded, tapping some commands into the PADD at her desk and uploading all the information in _Hydra's_ computer on Omega to the PADD. "We're not going to get out of this if I play this close to the chest," she noted, then retrieved another PADD from her desk and uploaded the information a second time, handing it over to T'Lal. "That said, the information stays on my personal computer, and in those PADDs. I will inform the crew of the basics, but the finer details don't go any further than these three computers."

"Oi. Four," Agent interjected, jerking a thumb at himself. "I'm not certain I even believe this Omega nonsense, captain, but if it does what you say and if it can be detected on Earth from where we are now then I _need_ to know its properties to do my job. Time travel requires exacting knowledge of subspace harmonics."

Sh'Sihl considered. "No. Not yet – not until we've dealt with the Omega. Until then…put your calculations on hold, and instead dig up anything you know about…" she considered, then called up on her desk's computer where the Omega had been detected on Earth. One was a small chain of islands in the far south Atlantic, uninhabited by humans and presumably the Ikroden's main base and, and the other location…

"Irkutsk," she read. "Irkutsk, Siberia, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

* * *

The briefing was not handled over the intercom – sh'Sihl had wanted to address the thirteen remaining members of the skeleton crew personally, and so had gathered them together on the bridge, with everything else set on automatic for the next few minutes. She had only gone over the basic information – what Omega was, the reason for the Omega Directive, the conflict it had with the Temporal Prime Directive, and her decision to violate the latter in order to carry out the former.

The apprehension was obvious. Yes, _Hydra_ had time-traveled before, but those times were under orders from Starfleet Command – and while previous incidents had occasional put the fate of the _future_ of the Federation under threat, this time they were dealing with a situation that could potentially prevent the Federation from ever existing in the first place. The knowledge of Omega and what it could do was even more existentially terrifying – as was the knowledge that no one knew if they were supposed to be acting at _all. _It was entirely possible that the Ikroden had historically been allowed to continue their research at Earth and then return to Epsilon Indii without incident. Or, perhaps, the crew of _Hydra_ was _supposed_ to stop the Ikroden, here and now, in this time. It was impossible to know.

"Having said all of that," sh'Sihl said in closing, spreading her hands, "just because we're going to be violating the Temporal Prime Directive, does not mean that we're going to just fly over Earth and announce our presence. By the same token, we can't simply tell the Ikroden that we're from the future and here to stop them."

She looked to doctor Tsegaye. "Doctor, we'll need every member of the bridge crew and away teams to be cosmetically modified to not look Human – it's the easiest species to disguise ourselves as, and Humans are found across the Alpha and Beta quadrants already, so it shouldn't raise suspicion. Replicate us some different-looking uniforms and combadges too, while you're at it."

The human man rubbed his beard. "Not my normal area of expertise…" he said, then looked to doctor Hauser. "But, I think it can be done."

Sh'Sihl nodded as she turned to Sila. "Lieutenant, I want you to scramble our universal translators somehow. Our disguises won't mean much if they hear us speaking English. Let _their _translators do the work – use a Delta Quadrant language, I doubt they'd have heard any before. I also want you to change all the writing on all visible control panels on the bridge to use the same language, and re-activate the ship's hull holo-projectors so that we can disguise the name plate."

Sila nodded, and sh'Sihl looked to the rest of the crew. "One way or another we have to get to Earth and stop the Ikroden. Our scanners can detect Omega in two locations – the Prince Edward Isles in the south Atlantic, and the city of Irkutsk in the Soviet Union. The islands are supposed to be uninhabited, so the main Ikroden base on Earth is probably there. But Irkutsk is a Human city and home to a military base – we're going to need to beam multiple teams down to the planet to figure out what the Ikroden are even doing in the USSR. So everyone else who isn't busy doing something to keep the ship running," she nodded towards the four engineering officers, who would be using their time in empty space – once they had peaceably made contact with the Ikroden – visually inspecting the shield generators and ensuring that they were fine, "I want you to brush up on your Terran history, concerning the Soviet Union."

Sh'Sihl glanced over her crew. She should say something inspiring right now, but damned if she could think of what it should be – there was just too much on her mind right now and she was too damn worn she was beginning to feel at the sheer enormity of the challenge before them. "We can't screw this up, people," she said, trying her best to sound serious. "But we have a four hundred year technological advantage on the Ikroden, and an even bigger one on Earth. We've done this time travel thing before, and we can do it again, and with any luck this will be for the last time.

"That's all. Dismissed."

* * *

Captain Avarar of the _Katar_ paced the command platform of his vessel with one hand behind his back, the other running along the railing that separated him from the rest of the bridge. The chair on the platform was empty and had been for some time now as the Ikroden captain remained on the bridge, coordinating the search efforts of _Katar_ with the _Kukri_ and _Talwar_. Their prey, an impossibly fast vessel – it had somehow exceeded warp _eight_, according to the _Kukri_'s operations officer – had taken refuge in the clouds of the systems' fifth planet.

And there it could stay, for all Avarar cared. He leaned back against the railing, crossing his arms and looking to his tactical officer. "Anything, subaltern?"

The subaltern shook his head. "No change, captain. The alien vessel remains hidden." He paused a moment, glancing towards the political officer before looking back to his captain. "Captain, I remain of the opinion that the intruder vessel was most likely crushed by the planet's gravity, or the pressure of however deep they have hidden. No ship that small could possibly withstand the atmosphere of a gas giant."

"No ship that small could possibly have a warp drive capable of moving at warp eight either, cornet," the political officer, Kala, said, her voice soft and her face holding a pleasing smile – neither of which fooled anyone on the bridge for a moment. "Yet it happened."

"It was not an Ikroden vessel," Avarar pointed out.

"No. But do you, captain, wish to take the chance of our cousins back on Ikroda learning what we are doing here?" Her smile widened slightly, and the small woman stepped closer to the command platform. "Hegemon Rajaisi will recall us once it is clear that the intruder vessel poses no threat. But it has only been a few hours."

Avarar was about to comment on that, when the tactical officer spoke up. "Captain, _Talwar_ is detecting activity from the planet – it's the intruder vessel!"

Avarar sprung into action at that, sitting down into his command chair. "Get me a visual, and contact _Kukri_. All vessels converge on the target."

_Kukri_'s engines, which until a few hours ago Avarar had considered the best in the Galaxy, sprung to life, the shift in her artificial gravity noticeable but slight. The intruder vessel was emerging on the far side of the gas giant, opposite the systems' sun – but too slowly to be trying to escape. Within just a few seconds _Kukri_ and _Katar_ had joined _Talwar_ in surrounding the vessel.

_Small_ did not seem to cover it – the vessel was half the size of _Katar_ at best, painted primarily silver but with blue highlights, and shaped like a malformed disc or saucer with engine pods on its sides. It was their first clear look at the vessel – it had moved too quickly each other time to get more than a blurry image that the computer had not been able to resolve.

"The vessel is…unharmed," the tactical subaltern reported. "More than two hundred and fifty kilometers down and unharmed…"

"Tactical analysis?" Avarar asked.

There was silence, and a fizzling noise from the console. "The vessel is jamming our sensors. I can _see_ at least one torpedo launcher, and forward and aft phase turrets and canons…but I cannot tell their power."

Avarar nodded, leaning back in his chair and pressing his hands together before his face. "Species?" he asked. "It doesn't look Vulcan or Andorian. Too smooth to be Klingon…too _blue_ to be Orion…"

The subaltern shook his head. "I cannot tell that either, sir. Ship doesn't match anything in our computer."

"We are being hailed," the communications cornet reported. "The language is…not in our files. It will take the translator several minutes to give us something workable."

"Contact _Parang_," Kala said, prompting Avarar to look to her incredulously. She didn't notice "Inform the Hegemon that the intruder vessel has reappeared and surrounded. Ask her for instructions."

Kala looked back to Avarar, and noticed his glare. Her own smile was gone now, and there was iron in her voice. "This is a first contact situation, captain. It cannot be left solely in the hands of the military. That was what lost us Ikroda."

_No, what lost us Ikroda was the Hegemon's _lack _of leaving matters to the military_, Avarar thought. He kept the thought to himself, however, as they waited for a response from the _Parang_. They were not waiting long, and the viewscreen flipped to show an image of Hegemon Rajaisi, sitting behind her desk aboard the _Parang_. She had grown remarkably gaunt over the past three years, her skin fading to a more neutral gray and pale brown rather than the healthier black and deep brown of a fit Ikroden.

Avarar stood respectfully, as did anyone on the bridge who was not performing a task vital to the ship's ability to function. "Hegemon," Avarar reported. "The intruder vessel has emerged from the fifth planet. We have it surrounded. It is hailing us, but we will need a few minutes to translate their language."

Rajaisi leaned forward at her desk. "_Do they know of the Parama?_"

Avarar wasn't sure how to answer that when he hadn't even spoken to the aliens yet and had just said as much. "I do not know, Hegemon. They have so far done nothing but run from us, hide, and then emerge from hiding without running again. Their ship is advanced but I do not believe them to be a threat."

Rajaisi considered. "_I do not like this, captain. Not when we are so close to stabilizing the Parama. But without knowing where the intruders come from, why they are here…_" She brightened after a moment. "_Be gracious and hospitable. Invite them to the _Parang_. I shall speak with their captain and find out what it wants with us. I am sure we can offer them something to leave us alone._"

Exactly _what_ the hegemon could offer was something that Avarar couldn't even begin to guess at – these were not the Russkiy, they already had warp capabilities, better ones than the Ikroden – but he only nodded. "Yes, Hegemon. What if they do not wish to go to the _Parang_, however?"

"_Be _insistent_, captain. As insistent as you need to be. Preserve the Hegemony at all costs._"

"Yes, Hegemon."

With that, the hegemon signed off. Kala's smile returned, but it was far more predatory than before. "Captain," she said, "might I suggest opening gunports? As a…precautionary measure."

Political officers only _officially_ made suggestions; unofficially they gave orders. Thankfully that was still a very unofficial power, and Avarar had made sure to staff his ship with officers who knew who was _supposed_ to be in command on a bridge. "Not yet," he said. "Not until the alien vessel gives me a reason to."

"Captain, translation finished," the comms cornet said. Avarar nodded, and the viewscreen before him changed, showing the bridge of the alien vessel. Like its hull, it was primarily done up in varying shades of blue or white, with a slight purple tinge to the lights. The bridge was of comparable size to the _Katar's_ own, but the station were all smaller, more compact, and surrounded the captain's chair rather than being set in front of it.

Of a greater note to Avarar was the species that he saw – humans, at least in appearance, dressed in uniforms that were primarily blue but with a brown stripe down the right side of the chest and across the shoulders on which sat rank insignia, simple gold vertical lines. Avarar guessed that the more there were, the higher the rank.

The one with the most rank stripes – four – was standing front and center, a female with pale skin and eyes and black hair arranged in a tight bun. To Avarar, she looked more than a little ragged – unsurprising given that she had just been hiding for six hours, probably wondering if the Ikroden were planning on bombarding the planet to drive her out. It had been considered, but she didn't need to know that.

"_Ikroden vessel _Katar," the human captain said, "_Captain Avarar. I am captain…Zelyh Sihl of the _Confederation_ starship _Hydra." She placed extra emphasis on the name of her government for some reason. Avarar glanced to the comms cornet, but he shook his head – their admittedly limited database did not contain anything about a Confederation stellar nation occupied by humans. "_We note that you have surrounded our vessel. This is making us…nervous. We have undertaken no hostile action._"

"Why is the Galaxy full of humans?" Kala asked.

"They might only look human," Avarar pointed out, though that, too, only raised questions. Apart from Sihl, there were other humans on the bridge – two with somewhat darker skins, both female, one at the captain's side, probably her first officer, and another, shorter and heavier one at a console that looked like it might have been a tactical one. The other two, at what was probably the comms station and undoubtedly the helm, were possessed of paler skin, though not as pale as the captain's own. Avarar glanced to his communications officer, nodding, then turned back to the viewscreen. A small brown dot appeared in one corner, indicating that he was now live with the intruder vessel. "Captain Sihl," he said, "this is captain Avarar. Our ships are surrounding your vessel as a…precautionary measure. We have never encountered the Confederation before and were not sure as to your intent."

"_We're based…very, very far away from here,_" Sihl said.

"_The other side of the Galaxy, in fact,_" her first officer said, a small smile on her face. Sihl looked to her and notably started slightly for some reason – she was a jumpy thing, it seemed – before settling down. The first officer continued. "_We were stranded in this quadrant of the galaxy after the wormhole we used to get here collapsed unexpectedly. We have been trying to find a way home._"

"Wormhole?" Avarar asked, glancing to his bridge crew. That word wasn't in the database any more than the Confederation was.

The first officer's smile remained fixed – and slightly unnerving, for some reason. "_A corridor connecting two separate points in space-time, allowing for extremely fast travel between those two points. They are rare, and stable ones even rarer. We had thought the one we traversed was stable, however, we were wrong._"

"_Yes_," Sihl said, having collected herself and smoothing out her uniform. "_Unfortunately even if we found some way to sustain our maximum warp indefinitely, we have determined that it would take us more than a hundred years to return to the Confederation._"

"_This_ is why we want the Parama molecule," Kala said in a whisper to Avarar. "It will make things much simpler back home."

"_We detected your ships,_" Sihl continued. "_And our supplies are running somewhat low. We had hoped to trade with you for foodstuffs, medical supplies…_"

"So you sneak up on us?" Avarar asked, letting his distrust show plainly in his voice. "Approach us like thieves in the night and then scurry off and hide when your attempts are discovered?"

Sihl rubbed her hands together. "_We have reason to be cautious_," she said. "_Our course has taken us through space controlled, operated in, or contested by the Tholians, the Klingons, and…others, few of which have been welcoming. We only wished to get a lay of the land, as it were – see if you were hostile or not, before initiating contact._"

Avarar had never heard of the Tholians, but he did know of the Klingons. Caution was indeed advisable after dealing with them. "Very well," he said, remembering the Hegemon's orders. He considered a few moments. "For the moment, I am willing to extend to you the benefit of the doubt. However, I must insist you come to and dock with our flagship, the _Parang_, and meet with Hegemon Rajaisi, our leader."

"_Of course,_" Sihl confirmed. "_We will follow your approach. _Hydra _out_."

The screen went blank, showing the intruder ship once more. Avarar looked to Kala. "Wormholes," he noted.

"I have information on them now," the comms cornet said. "We term them Kollamu bridges. With what is known about warp travel and subspace, they are theoretically possible, but none have ever been confirmed by our science."

Avarar wasn't certain he liked the concept of Kollamu bridges – and he was an outlier amongst Ikroden already, one who had argued strongly in favor of establishing at least a small interstellar nation and offworld colonies. The Hegemon had overruled him. It was hard enough controlling Ikroda – their presence here in this system was proof enough of that – how could the Hegemony control a stellar empire?

"Helm," Avarar said, "set course for _Parang, _maintain formation around the intruder vessel…around the _Hydra_."

"If it tries to flee," Kala added, "open fire on it."

* * *

"You were _smiling_," sh'Sihl noted of T'Lal. The Vulcan had needed only basic modification to her ears to appear human and a small amount of makeup to hide the green tint to her otherwise dark skin, while sh'Sihl's own disguise had called for a change to her skin's pigmentation, minor and reversible surgery to hide her slight cranial ridges, and a wig under which to hide her antennae, and she'd also shortened her very distinctively Andorii name considerably to just the diminutive form of her first name and dropped the gender-indicator from her clan name. Ensign Ludjira at ops had needed to undergo even more extensive physical changes to hide her Tellarite nature, something that she would no doubt spend the next several weeks complaining about provided they escaped from this situation alive and with the Federation intact.

The smile that T'Lal had been wearing had dropped as soon as their connection to the _Katar_ had been dropped. "Vulcans are known for our…austere nature," she noted. "I thought that a smile would aid in our attempts at misdirection."

"_I_ wouldn't have recognized you," ensign Vanoni noted. Human already, he hadn't needed to do anything other than change into the uniforms that Tsegaye had selected, a rejected Starfleet design from the early 2200s. Lieutenant Sila had also merely needed to hide her Trill spots.

Sh'Sihl glanced over to Sila. "Now that we're not under four hundred kilometers worth of cloud, do a quick scan of the Ikroden vessels. Do they have transporters?"

Sila complied, and shook her head after a moment. "No. None that I can detect, anyway – not even cargo ones. Hopefully that means that they won't be able to detect our own transporters."

"Hopefully," sh'Sihl echoed. She looked to T'Lal. "Alright. Assemble your team in the transporter room and get ready to beam down to Irkutsk. Replicate a portable holo-emitter and take Agent with you, he'll probably be able to help. I'll keep things covered up here."

"Yes, captain," T'Lal confirmed, turning and heading from the bridge.

Sh'Sihl nodded to herself, then looked between Vanoni, Sila, and Ludjira. "Alright," she said. "So…I just said we were here to trade. What do we have to trade that probably won't risk damaging the timeline if we screw all this up?"


End file.
